Disclaimer: Ranma ½ and its characters and settings belong
to Rumiko Takahashi, Shogakukan, Kitty, and Viz Video. This story
based on the anime, not the manga.

Chapter 5: After the Rain Has Fallen, Part 2

It had taken him nearly three hours to find the thunderstorm. Beneath
him the clouds boiled and raged, lashing the sea with wind and rain.
Lightning whistled from cloud to cloud, powerfully enough that at
times he not only heard the crash of thunder, he felt the barest
hint of a discharge, the slightest static echo across his feathers.
It wouldn't have been perceptible if he was in human form (of course,
if he had been in human form in his current position he'd have had
much bigger things to worry about), but from the very beginning
Ranma had known how much more sensitive to weather and the sky in
general his new body was.

He flew now at what that form's instincts told him was nearly the
lowest possible safe height above the storm. High enough to escape
any dangerous winds, and certainly out of reach of the rain, hail,
and lightning, but low enough, close enough, that the furor seemed
close at hand. The violence of the storm was comforting at this
distance, so near, and yet too far away to reach out and break over
him.

It made a welcome contrast to the events of the morning. Most of
Ranma's first blistering anger was gone by now, leeched away by
the impersonal fury of the elements below him, but some still remained.
He didn't think that was likely to change anytime soon either, no
matter how exhilarating and enjoyable it was to roam the skies.
"~Kuno, you idiot. Why the heck did you have to get this stupid
idea anyway?~" he demanded of the air. "~And couldn't
you have once, just once, listened when somebody showed you
you weren't on the right track?!~"

Even as he asked these questions, though, another part of his mind
was calling himself seventeen different kinds of an idiot. To think
that he'd expected Tatewaki Kuno to give up an idea he'd gotten
firmly in his head, no matter how logical or reasonable a counterargument
was supplied… especially an idea that would result in Ranma
Saotome getting doused with cold water? He sighed as best he could
in his current body. "~Talk about ignoring the lessons I should've
already learned, from how things have happened before now.~"

He brooded on that for awhile, in the meantime deciding that he'd
followed the storm for long enough. Bending one wing and tilting
the arc of his body, Ranma swung in a long lazy curve that set him
flying back toward the Japanese mainland. The irony did not escape
him that he was leaving behind a storm that couldn't touch him,
in order to sail back toward troubles that could. Furinkan in general
and Tatewaki in particular were certain to become a bigger nuisance
after this. Akane would undoubtedly become even more worried and
overprotective — not that that one was wholly unpleasant,
but still… and Ranma didn't even want to think about how his
father might react. Outsmarted by a Kuno… he could almost
hear the lamentations now.

"~Maybe I can keep him from finding out…~" Ranma
mused dubiously. "~Akane might worry for me, but that don't
mean she'd feel like she has to tell my old man about this. And
with Pop and Mr. Tendo back in town I'm getting an allowance again,
so that oughta help out with Nabiki. Let's just hope nobody says
anything before I make it back home…~" With that in mind,
he poured on the speed, going from letting the wind do the work
to actively exerting himself.

He'd covered roughly a quarter mile of sky before his pace slowed
again, slowed even further than it had been before. His thoughts
weren't exactly racing either, but they were progressing at a steady,
unhindered pace. Ranma thought back over many of the things that
had happened in his life, continuing a line of thought that he'd
followed for quite a long way six days ago. Back then he'd been
thinking about his mother, and how much it sucked that she wasn't
yet going to be able to see the family she'd been awaiting for so
long. She would have to go on worrying and hoping and praying that
her son would be someone she could be proud of, and he had cursed
the fact. It had taken several dozen miles of sky, but he had eventually
begun thinking about his past and some of the mistakes he'd made,
and realized that maybe there were a few more things that he ought
to work through before reuniting with Nodoka. After all, it wouldn't
do much good to hurry back to her if it was only going to end up
causing her more pain.

As he'd told Shampoo, that was something he'd come to terms with.
He had made mistakes in the past, he knew he hadn't handled many
of the crazy situations as well as he should have. He'd ignored
some problems, misunderstood others, and tried to wing his way through
yet more of them without anything more than optimism and a shortsighted
desire to fight or squirm his way past whatever the latest irritation
was. And so many things had gone unresolved because of it!

Ranma couldn't really form a frown of stony determination in his
current form, but he tried anyway. Forget begging Akane and bribing
Nabiki into silence! Let his father find out what had happened at
Furinkan today! If the old man got too obnoxious, Ranma would just
take it out of his hide in their next ten sparring sessions, reminding
Genma as forcefully as he had to that one Jusenkyo-influenced fluke
victory by Kuno didn't make Ranma Saotome any less of a man among
men!

He gave out a long, fiery screech and deliberately jumped into
another air current, abandoning his previous Nerima-bound course.
No need or reason to hurry back home. What would happen, would happen.
For now, he was going to stay out here awhile longer, and enjoy
to the fullest the best gift anybody had ever given him. Stressful
meetings could wait.

"~RANMA, PREPARE TO… die…~"

His body was moving in automatic evasion before the fourth pseudo-syllable
had succeeded the third. Not until he'd sideslipped across and down
seventy feet of sky did the curious nature of the battlecry dawn
on him. It had been Ryoga, that had been immediately apparent even
though this was the first time he'd heard his rival's new cursed
form's voice. But what was equally clear, through the translation
effect of Jusenkyo's magic, was that the Lost Bird's threat had
gone from furious to halfhearted to forgotten even before it could
be completed.

Confused and wary, Ranma nonetheless flapped his way closer to
Ryoga's revealed location, stopping just far enough away that he
could still pretend it wasn't obvious Ryoga's cursed form was larger
than his. "~Hey, Ryoga. What's with letting the death-threat
die out like that? You didn't chicken out, did ya?~"

"~HOW DARE YOU — huh?~" Ryoga's renewed fury was
sidetracked as he watched his rival make some bizarre motion with
his right wing, utterly destroying the balance of his flight and
causing him to spill down through several yards of air.

'Will you get a grip, moron?!' Ranma demanded of himself.
'For crying out loud, I was just thinking about how much of a
mistake it is to keep on doing the same stuff over and over again
without thinking! And as soon as Ryoga shows up I shoot off the
old Saotome Get 'Em Good And Riled technique? With what I owe him?!
Nuh-uh, no way, not today.' Resolving that once he was back
in human form he'd give himself the smack upside the head that he
couldn't quite manage just now, Ranma flapped back to his previous
position relative to Ryoga.

"~Uh… sorry, man. Force of habit,~" Ranma explained,
trying to find the words to express what he really needed to. "~That
ain't what I meant to say.~"

"~Go on,~" Ryoga replied, doing his best to hide reluctance
with righteous indignation. Inside, though, he was already regretting
this meeting. He had every intention of beating his rival to a pulp,
but he couldn't do that in the current circumstances. 'It's too
bad Jusenkyo makes us understand each other when we're like this,'
he grumbled to himself. 'He wasn't even really saying anything,
but I still knew that screech was him as clear as day. And I just
HAD to go ahead and let him know I was here, when all I can do right
now is either listen to more of his insults or run away.' Ryoga
was still trying to decide which of those was the lesser of two
evils.

Uncertain as to why Ryoga was holding back like this, but unwilling
to push his luck, Ranma quickly said, "~About our fight. You
know, when I told you that this new curse would wear off after awhile?~"

"~You mean when you lied through your teeth just so you could
try to take me down with you?~"

"~For the record, I figured it would be me winning when you
took the worst of the attack, not a double KO,~" Ranma snapped.
"~But… yeah. Even if it'd worked out like I thought,
it was going too far. I'm sorry.~"

It was more of an apology than Ryoga had ever expected to get.
That was not to say that it had gone far enough. "~And?~"

"~And what?~"

"~Is that all you've got to say?~" Ryoga demanded. "~All
you've got to apologize for? That was a low blow, Ranma, but at
least it was just the same kind of thing you've pulled before. Just
trying to win a fight. That's nothing compared to the other stuff
you dumped on me!~"

Ranma's eyes narrowed. "~You mean, the stuff I pointed out
to you about what you were doing and what it really meant? Exactly
what kind of apology are you looking for there?~"

"~Damn you, I told you before!~" Ryoga shouted. "~You
didn't even bother to say any of that stuff until it was already
too late for me to fix it myself! You just waited until after you
and Shampoo had already fixed things up nice and neat between you.
Would it have been so hard to let me be the one to make the decision?!~"

"~Kinda seems like the answer there is 'Yes'. Or are you forgetting
that Shampoo only dumped the water on you after she offered it and
you turned her down?~"

"~What kind of difference is that supposed to make?! She didn't
say anything about that. All she said was, 'Now you no have to worry
about Akane find out you secret, turn you into bad excuse for sweet
and sour pork.' That's a pretty far cry from the stuff you could
have said to me, Ranma!~"

"~No, I couldn't have,~" Ranma snapped back. "~You
know, it's kind of flattering in a way, you thinking that all along
I've seen all this stuff crystal clear. It's also insulting as hell
in another, and it's just plain stupid to boot. Since it's obvious
I cared about what you were doing with, and to, Akane, if I did
understand all that stuff since day one why wouldn't I have said
it before now?~"

"~I don't know! Why didn't you?~

"~For crying out loud, will you stop yelling and start thinking?~"
Ranma shouted. "~I didn't see it any better than you did. Don't
try to hand me any bull, Ryoga — you knew all along that what
you were doing as P-chan wasn't right. I know there's times you
felt guilty about it. But you didn't see how bad it really was,
and neither did I. Not until Shampoo finally put a stop to it. Yeah,
I had asked her to offer you the rest of the water, cause I could
see at least clearly enough to know the P-chan stuff needed to stop.
But that was really as far as I thought about it until afterward.
She busted up the old pattern, went farther than I thought I'd meant
for her to go, and that was what got me thinking about it. That
was when I figured out all the stuff I said to you. I guess it was
easier to see once I was looking back on it afterward, rather than
having it right up in my face.~"

After finishing the last sentence, Ranma paused for a few seconds,
partly to recover his breath, partly to judge his rival's reaction.
"~You know, I am both surprised and impressed that you let
me finish all that without butting in, Ryoga.~"

Ryoga snorted, although the sound didn't carry across the yards
of sky separating him from Ranma. "~Far be it from me to interrupt
when Ranma Saotome is admitting he made a mistake.~"

"~You want to return the favor now, P-chan?~" Ranma retorted.
"~In case you didn't realize, it wasn't a lot of fun to have
you throw all that in my face back then. Like I knew all that stuff
from the beginning and just sat on it, not caring about anything
except hitting you with it at the worst possible moment. It wasn't
like that and you should've known it all along.~"

"~You're right, Ranma. Sorry for overestimating you.~"

"~Oh, hardy har har. Laugh it up, Chuckles, but don't forget
I owe you a rematch. You wouldn't want me to ask for it right here
and now, would you? It's pretty obvious which one of us has got
more flying experience.~" Ryoga's passage through the air wasn't
exactly ungainly, but it was clear to Ranma that he had attained
much more familiarity with his cursed form than had his rival.

"~Shut up! This is just my second long flight, and I wouldn't
even be doing it if my pack hadn't disappeared between the sprinkler
hitting me and when I finally got out of my shirt!~"

Ranma stared at the other transformed teen for several moments,
then swept his gaze to the ocean below, to the clouds beyond, and
to the landmass of Japan still a half hour's flight away. "~You're
up here because you're trying to find your way back to your backpack?~"

"~Laugh and die,~" Ryoga grated. Then, qualifying the
statement, he said, "~Once we're back to our normal selves,
at least.~"

Forcefully swallowing a remark about Ryoga, 'normal', and paradox,
Ranma said, "~Okay. So… this is your second real flight.
Are you starting to see how much better this is than your old curse,
even aside from the whole Akane issue?~"

"~Better?~" Ryoga echoed incredulously. "~How's
it supposed to be better?! Okay, maybe nobody's going to put me
on their lunch menu anymore, but it's not like this curse didn't
come with its own huge problem!~"

"~Huge problem?~" It was Ranma's turn to repeat something
in clear disbelief. "~What're you talking about?~"

"~Are you out of your tiny little mind?! You know how hard
it is for me to find my way anywhere, Ranma. Do you have any idea
how much worse it is when you've got the whole sky to get lost in?!~"

"~You mean…~" Ranma almost couldn't believe he
was saying this, "~you don't like to fly?~"

This time, Ryoga's snort was loud enough that both transformed
teens heard it. "~What's there to like?! Do you have any idea
how much of my life I've spent on the road, wandering around with
no idea where I am? Do you know what it feels like not to have any
idea where I can find anybody I know? Let me tell you, Ranma, it's
a lot worse than any of the wimpy little problems you complain about!~"

With serious effort, the Saotome heir kept his response to that
within the silence of his own thoughts. Ryoga blowing off Ranma's
problems was irritating and unjustified, but it didn't diminish
the other's own complaint.

Meanwhile, the Lost Boy was still speaking. "~This is like
somebody took a good long look at my life, figured out what the
worst parts of it were… at least, the parts that weren't my
own fault…~" he mumbled the amendment, then his voice
returned to normal volume, "and deliberately extended them
and made them worse!~" Ryoga still remembered the incredible
naiveté with which he had thought of flying quickly to Jusenkyo
in order to keep his old curse from ever returning. At the time
of that half-formed, half-baked plan, he had not yet experienced
just what flight was like for a Hibiki. "~The last time this
happened, it took me three days to find my way back to my campsite.
And there's no reason to think it won't be that bad or worse each
time. Days spent all alone, not even human, trying to find
my way back to somewhere I can recognize. Without even being able
to stop and get bad directions from somebody! Damn it all, Ranma,
I'm tired of being so alone!~"

"~I… Ryoga, I'm sorry… I, I never thought this
new curse could be as bad as your old one. Not in a different way
anyway,~" Ranma amended.

"~It… it's not. Not quite as bad,~" Ryoga said,
the words sounding as if he'd had to extract them with heavy machinery.
"~This way hurts me. The other way, I was hurting someone else.~"
As if to hurry past that thought, he quickly said, "~And of
course I always had to worry about that nutcase klepto skater stumbling
across 'Charlotte' again, or getting cooked for somebody's dinner…~"

"~You know, Shampoo actually did that once, and you lived
through it just fine,~" Ranma pointed out.

"~Do you think I want to be reminded of that?!~" Ryoga
raged, completely trampling his rival's follow-up sentence. "~If
you're trying to make me feel better about having this curse instead
of the pig, that's not the way to do it!~"

Although within the privacy of his own mind Ranma wondered why
the heck not, what he said was, "~Actually, I was trying to
lead up to something better.~"

"~No. What I meant was, you could probably say Shampoo owes
you for that time, and I guess she and I together owe you something
too now. Even if it was because of something that was mostly your
fault.~" Ranma quickly continued speaking, before Ryoga's growl
could transform into outright abuse. Based on what Shampoo had told
him, about how the Jusenkyo laws used to be and how they had changed,
his idea shouldn't be a problem now. "~I'll get with her and
ask her to have someone at home mail some Nannichuan out here for
you.~"

Ryoga's entire body shuddered to frozen immobility, which of course
sent him dropping like a stone. Ranma zipped down after him, glad
to see that the shock of the fall quickly restored his rival to
motion. In fact, once he recovered Ryoga was flying noticeably more
smoothly than before, and Ranma deduced that the other was now operating
on pure instinct. 'Lord knows it's not that hard to overload
his mind,' the Saotome heir thought cynically.

"~A-are you serious?!~" Ryoga eventually gasped.

"~Yep.~" In fact, he could have her order enough water
to also remove his father's Panda curse, and even have some left
over if Ranma himself ever had drastic need to get rid of his own.
The water's magic wouldn't last forever, of course, but for Genma
and Ryoga it wouldn't have to.

"~You'd do that? She'd do that?!~"

"~For you, no, probably she wouldn't. I'm sure I can get her
to agree, though,~" Ranma assured, trying not to picture the
number of dates he was surely going to have to agree on. For a request
of this magnitude, it wouldn't just be Shampoo he was asking, he'd
have to go through Cologne as well. For that matter, since this
would be eliminating Shampoo's potential winter break trip to China
with him, the lavender-haired girl herself would certainly take
more convincing than normal.

But it was the right thing to do. And although she could never
hear about it, Ranma believed it was something that his mother would
be proud of — at least, as long as one didn't factor in the
earlier, less-than-optimal actions that had led to this moment of
decision.

"~I… I don't know what to say…~"

"~That's easy enough,~" Ranma retorted. "~Say that
after this we're both free and clear of anything and everything
related to you going to Jusenkyo. No more 'Ranma, because of you
I've seen hell!', no more blamin' me for that stuff or dragging
it back out as a reason to attack me. You and I both got better
reasons to challenge each other than that, and I want it to finally
lie down in the past and die.~"

Ryoga paused for a moment, thinking of all the other ways his rival
had managed to irritate the crap out of him in times past. Even
without this one, there would definitely be no shortage of reasons
to give Ranma a good thrashing. "~Yeah, okay. When and if you
get Shampoo to do that for me, I accept.~"

"~Sounds good to me.~" They flew in silence for awhile,
before Ranma oh-so-innocently asked, "~You sure you don't want
to have just one challenge match like this? I bet I can kick your
tail feathers all the way to the Arctic Circle.~"

"~No way.~"

"~Come on, you big chicken. Don't be such a scaredy-bat. Are
you a man or a grouse?~"

"~Forget it, Ranma! Akane asked me to promise that I wouldn't
do anything that could get either of us hurt in our cursed forms,
and I'm going to keep my word no matter how many stupid insults
you try! And those were pretty darn stupid, let me tell you.~"

Ranma blinked, not really even hearing the slur against his combat
incitement technique. "~Because Akane asked you to be careful,
you're not going to attack me?~"

"~That's right.~"

"Is that why you pulled back from the whole 'Ranma, prepare
to die' thing earlier? That's why you've listened to everything
I've said?~"

"~Ranma, you jerk! I might not be able to fight you, and I
might be willing to swallow insults against me, but I won't listen
to you talk bad about Akane!~" And with that, Ryoga made a
sharp right turn into a dive, quickly picking up airspeed and disappearing
inside a cloud.

"~Wait, you moron!~" Ranma squawked, following quickly
in Ryoga's wake. "~Don't ya want me to lead you back to the
dojo? You didn't even let me tell you about the soap I've got for
you! Ryoga!! Where are you?!~"

He spent the next hour searching the skies for the other boy, achieving
exactly nothing.

Kasumi paused on the threshold of the dojo, her hand outstretched
to the frame but not yet sliding the door open. She listened, hearing
the sound of her sister's kiais and the crunch of shattered brick.
Akane's mood was plain to tell even from this distance.

The eldest Tendo daughter waited, listening as her little sister
worked her way through more stacks of bricks. Each new batch of
materials destroyed took just a little more of the edge off Akane's
anger. By the time she'd heard ten more stacks bite the dust, Kasumi
judged that she ought not to wait any longer. By no means had Akane
recovered her good spirits, but at least she ought to be calm enough
to listen to what Kasumi had to say.

Taking a deep breath to fortify herself, and pushing away thoughts
of the last time she'd confronted Akane about something that happened
in the dojo, Kasumi slid the door open and entered. "Akane,
are you in here?" she called, not as a serious question but
rather to announce her presence.

"What is it, Kasumi? HIII-YA!" Another stack of bricks
went to that great construction site in the sky.

"I need to talk with you about what happened today,"
Kasumi answered.

Akane heaved a bitter, disgusted sigh. She would rather not have
had to remember those events just now. However, though she would
have thrown Ranma out in a heartbeat if he were the one asking,
she wouldn't blow off either of her sisters — and besides,
as sweet and gentle as Kasumi was, maybe talking about this with
her would help Akane feel a little better. Surely she could at least
count on sympathy. "Okay," she said, heading over to the
wall and sitting down with her back against it.

Kasumi joined her there, kneeling down and looking her sister in
the eye. "What happened after you left the house?" She
didn't think it would make any difference in what she'd come here
to say, but it would be better to hear Akane out first.

"I went to make sure Shampoo wasn't chasing after Ranma,"
Akane said with a scowl. "He's already had a bad enough time
today, he didn't need that to make it worse."

"She wasn't, was she?" It was a guess on Kasumi's part.
Certainly Akane had met up with someone and the encounter had progressed
poorly, but Kasumi didn't know just who. She could picture Akane's
actions and attitude resulting from a confrontation with either
Shampoo or Cologne, albeit for different reasons. Shampoo seemed
more likely, though; Cologne might have had a few things to say
that little sister wouldn't want to hear, but the old woman didn't
usually push anyone as far as this.

"No, she was just getting back from a delivery. Too late to
bug Ranma, but she was just in time to dump on me and treat me like
I'm nothing next to her," Akane seethed. "Maybe I can't
beat her now, but that's not how it's going to be forever!"

So her suspicions were correct — it had been Shampoo. "Are
you sure you're all right, little sister?" She well remembered
the mood Akane had been in when she left for the Cat Café.
Kasumi wasn't optimistic enough to think that it hadn't come down
to a fight with Ranma's Amazon friend. Akane didn't seem physically
hurt, but… "She didn't use any other trick like that
special shampoo, did she?"

"No, she didn't. I'm fine, Kasumi. Please just leave it,"
Akane said tightly, attempting through sheer force of will to block
the recent memories. She'd given it her all, striking at Shampoo
with all the speed and skill and strength she could muster, and
the Amazon just danced around her like a ghost, blocking and dodging
with no apparent effort, Shampoo's own blows striking her at will.
That the Amazon had just brushed the heel of her hand against Akane
had only made it worse, the feather-light mocking touch stinging
worse than an actual punch would have. "It wasn't even a real
fight anyway." That last sentence cost her quite a bit to utter,
and only in the hope of relieving the concern on Kasumi's face did
Akane make the sacrifice.

"Is fighting her for real so important to you?" Kasumi
asked sadly.

"Of course it is!" Akane yelled. "There's no way
I'm going to take this anymore!"

"And so you came back home and waited for Father and Mr. Saotome
to return. And once they did you went straight to Mr. Saotome and
asked him to train you." Kasumi gave her sister the most sorrowful
gaze she could muster. "Akane, do you realize what you've done?"

Akane gave her sister the most confused gaze she muster. "Um,
yes. Ranma is good enough to beat Shampoo easily, and I'm asking
the sensei who trained him to do the same thing for me."

"And what about your own father?" Kasumi hinted.

For one moment longer the confusion remained on Akane's face, and
then it began to drain away. Kasumi watched, suppressing a sigh
as the previous emotion transformed into a look of stubbornness
mixed with the barest tinge of worry. She continued, speaking gently
but firmly, "I know it's been a while since he trained you—"

"A while?! Try over a year!"

"But that doesn't change what's important here. You are Akane
Tendo, the heir to the Tendo School of Anything Goes, and Father
is still the school's head. How can you just turn away to study
under someone else? Don't you think that's why Mr. Saotome didn't
want to agree to this?"

"He didn't say he wouldn't train me, Kasumi, and he didn't
say he didn't want to. He just said he needed some time to think
about it. Considering that he and Dad had just gotten back from
the bar and you had to put Dad to bed to sleep it off, I don't think
that's any big deal." Although in all honesty, part of Akane's
anger did stem from the fact that Genma hadn't given immediate assent
and started working right away on teaching her a technique powerful
enough to take down Shampoo. Still, she could give him the rest
of the day to recover from his carousing. "He just needs some
time to think about what he's going to teach me."

"Or perhaps he's giving you time to think this over, to see
for yourself that it isn't as simple as you first thought. Little
sister, think about what you're doing. You haven't even talked to
Father about this, haven't spoken with him at all about learning
from someone else. What would it say about the school, your family,
and your place in both of them?"

"What does it say that Dad quit training me right after the
Saotomes got here?" Akane countered. "You're looking at
things that aren't really in the picture, Kasumi. I need to get
better. That's all there is to say."

"No, it isn't! Akane, this is wrong. Are you even stopping
to think about how this might hurt Father?"

"How about how Shampoo could hurt me any time she wants?!"
Akane said, biting the words off. "What about what Dad did?!
Does he think I'm good enough already? Because I'm not! Does it
mean there's nothing left for him to teach me? Then I need to go
to someone who can! You know how the Saotomes did it, big sister.
Mr. Saotome took Ranma on the road, hitting a lot of different places.
That wasn't just training grounds, Ranma studied under different
sensei, a bunch of them. It didn't make him any less of a student
of Saotome Anything Goes, it just meant he was pulling in new bits
and pieces to work into the style! That's what Anything Goes is
supposed to be about. Adaptability and growth and learning new things."
Although she couldn't remember her father ever saying it outright
like that, both Genma and Happosai had in the past. Always to Ranma,
though, never directly to her… Akane paused, taking several
deep breaths, then continued, "Maybe I haven't done so good
at that, maybe…" her fists clenched tightly in her lap,
"maybe you could even say I stank at it before now. I've tried
to learn new stuff when I practice on my own, but that's obviously
not good enough. I'm not good enough. And I'm not putting up with
it any longer!"

"Akane, you keep talking about yourself, and only focusing
on the martial arts side of this. I'm talking about honor and respect,
not just for a sensei, but for your father!"

"If this isn't about martial arts, why are we even talking
right now?!" Akane retorted. "Kasumi, not only are you
not a martial artist, you're too nice to thinkabout fighting
someone. You even treat Shampoo like she's a perfectly nice, reasonable
person who there's no reason for anyone not to want around! This
really isn't something you can understand, big sister." Akane's
expression softened, and she quickly dipped her head in a bow. "Please
don't take offense."

"I'm certainly not going to get offended by any of that,"
Kasumi said quietly. "And you're right, I don't see this the
same way you do. But since we see different things here, don't you
think maybe you should consider what I've said? Are you so sure
you aren't missing or misunderstanding anything here?"

"I'm sure I have to do this." Akane's tone informed her
older sister in no uncertain terms that, though the conversation
might continue, the debate was over. "If Dad has a problem
with it, then let him come to me and tell me why I shouldn't do
it. But I'm not backing down anymore. Not for him, not for Ranma,
not for anyone."

"A warrior's path:
To rise to all challenges.
Furinkan awaits."

Soun Tendo stood in the light of morning, staring off into the
distance. There were far too many buildings in the way for him to
actually see the high school from here, but he pictured it in his
mind's eye. Pictured too the challenges that might be there, the
battles and the trials that would likely be the result of what had
happened yesterday. He had heard the news late last evening, how
the end of the school day had shown Ranma's new curse to all of
Furinkan. "Hardly surprising the boy was none too enthusiastic
about returning there today," Soun muttered sagely. He wondered
whether Ranma would have left in a better mood if Soun had been
able to finish the haiku and share it before his daughter and son-in-law-to-be
had left. "But this too is a martial artist's duty."

"It stirs the soul, doesn't it? Brings the mind back to our
own younger days, and the challenges we faced. It does the heart
good in a way," Soun mused. "To know that the new generation
has picked up where the old left off, fighting their own battles
and walking the path of martial righteousness with their own feet."

"Mm-hm. I'm sure Ranma won't much like some of what will happen
at Furinkan, now that everybody knows about his new curse. But it
should lead to many new chances for the boy to learn new skills
and grow as a fighter." Genma paused, searching for just the
right words to lead the conversation away from Ranma to another
member of the new generation of Anything Goes martial artists.

"After all, what does not kill us makes us stronger. Right,
Saotome?"

"Yes, that's true. If we let it, anyway."

"Well, I think we both know there's no need to worry about
that!" Soun let out a long, hearty laugh. "That's
one lesson you taught Ranma very well indeed."

Sighing and bracing himself, Genma replied, "True. But I wasn't
talking about my boy there, Tendo. I was more concerned about Akane."

"Akane? What do you mean?"

"Did you know she had a fight with Shampoo yesterday?"
Before Soun could do more than blanch at this news, Genma's hand
shot out and clenched reassuringly on the Tendo patriarch's shoulder.
"Remember, you saw her for yourself this morning, and she's
fine. Shampoo didn't even hit her once, from the little bit of description
I was able to get out of her." He had received the strong impression
he'd be better off pulling teeth from a crocodile than trying to
pry more details of the fight out of Akane.

"I don't know. I don't think so. Not considering the mood
she was in when we got back yesterday," Genma said. "She
was as angry as I've ever seen her, Tendo. And she was hating the
fact that she couldn't fight Shampoo on her own level and win."

"On her own level?!" the Tendo patriarch repeated indignantly.
"That Amazon comes from a culture where getting in a fight
could mean your life whether you win or lose! If you're an outsider,
anyway. I'll have to talk to Akane and remind her about that. My
precious little girl needs to know she's already better than Shampoo
where it really counts."

"Tell her that if you want, but I don't think it's going to
make any difference this time. There's only one thing she wants
to hear from us, and it isn't 'Give Shampoo one look of disgust
and then just walk away.' She made that very clear in the dojo yesterday."

"In the dojo?" Soun echoed. A fuzzy memory swam up from
the depths of his mind. "You mean, that was where she dragged
you off to when we got home yesterday?"

"Yes, that's right."

"And that's when you heard about this fight and Akane being
in a bad mood? She was quiet at breakfast this morning, but she
didn't seem particularly unhappy." It should be stated here
that Soun's eyes had been on his newspaper at the moment when Akane
had sent a fierce, don't-think-I'm-going-to-wait-much-longer look
Genma's way. "Come now, Saotome, you're being too much of a
worrywart over this. It's not like you to take such a dark outlook,
especially over something you can't really remember anyway. You
were just as pickled as I was yesterday afternoon."

"No, I wasn't." Genma had hoped not to have to reveal
this. He didn't want to spoil this wonderful new stratagem before
it could win him at least one afternoon's worth of shogi. Thinking
frantically for a few seconds, he was rewarded with an inspiration.
"I only pretended to be as far gone as you. That way, Ranma
would have underestimated me when I asked him for a sparring match."

Soun blinked. "Then why didn't you let me in on the scheme?"

"Um… um… in order to fool your enemies, er, your
opponents, you must first fool your friends. Or something like that."

"Well, all right then."

"In any case, that's not important. What is important is that
my judgment was perfectly unimpaired when Akane stood there and
asked me to train her to defeat Shampoo."

"She… you… what… that's…" Soun
gaped for a few moments, then recovered. "And since your judgment
was, as you say, unimpaired, you told her that you couldn't do such
a thing. Correct, Saotome?"

Noting the flickering hints of chi in the angles and lines of Soun's
face, and recognizing all too easily the traces of a Demon Head
ready to form at a moment's notice, Genma chose his words with care.
"Considering how peeved she was, I didn't think it was a good
idea to tell her anything outright. I told her I'd need some time
to think about it."

"Even better," Soun conceded. The chi faded back to invisibility.
"Give her some time to cool down and realize that competing
with Shampoo like that is a terrible idea."

"Mmmm." Genma packed as much skepticism into the monosyllable
as he could. Soun didn't seem to notice. Deciding that subtlety
just wasn't going to cut it here, he continued, "You do know
how Shampoo and Akane got into the fight yesterday, don't you? Akane
went to Shampoo. Not the other way around."

"And once we make it clear how bad an idea that is, she'll—"

"Tendo, will you please listen to me?!" Silently Genma
cursed Akane for forcing him into a position like this, Shampoo
for the recent changes that had his son's real fiancée in
such turmoil, and Ranma for not giving the Amazons the heave-ho
long ago. For that matter, the Jusenkyo Guide really ought to have
known better than to guide two hungry, unfortunate strangers to
such a perilous place as the Amazon village. Perhaps he ought to
send a scathing letter to the Jusenkyo society… postage due,
if they allowed that sort of thing on international mail.

"Listen to what?" Soun's voice broke into Genma's mental
ramblings of just who was really at fault here.

"Akane isn't going to take 'no' for an answer. Not this time,"
he said quietly. "Now, I agree with you that it would be better
for her not to fight Shampoo. But she isn't going to let go of the
idea anytime soon. I think the best thing to do is go along with
what she asked."

"Excuse me?" Soun said sharply, in a tone Genma hadn't
heard since the one time the Tendo patriarch had thrown him out
as well as his son. The traces of chi were back, more pronounced
than before. "Did you just say you want to encourage my daughter
in this? To seriously fight a girl who's trained to kill?!"

"No, it's not like that!" 'Actually, it's exactly
like that.' But Genma knew better than to say that out
loud. This was no time to try to convince Soun that, win or lose,
Akane could fight Shampoo safely. He himself didn't much care for
the idea, but since he wasn't an overprotective paranoiac of a parent,
he could see clearly enough that Akane going against Shampoo for
real wouldn't have such terrible repercussions. Soun, on the other
hand… let him have time to get used to the idea of Akane training
seriously before Genma tried to convince him that just because Shampoo
could put Akane down for good, didn't mean she would
make such a stupid blunder. In fact, if the girls only fought one
another in formal challenge matches with plenty of witnesses, that
would probably be safer than the way things were now.

He still would have been happier if Akane had never made her request,
but Genma was going to do the best he could with the hand he had
been dealt plus whatever cards he might find up his sleeve. "Think
about it this way, Tendo. Akane came to me to learn how to get better
than Shampoo. That means I get to set the pace, pick the training.
She'll be waiting for me to tell her she's good enough before she
tries to take her enemy down!"

"Hmmm… so we're really just buying time for her to get
over the worst of her temper…" Soun mused. "Well,
that's good, as far as it goes. But this business with Shampoo isn't
the only thing I'm concerned about here."

"It's not? What else is there?"

"What happens after you've spent a few weeks teaching her
some new tricks? She'll be proud of what she's learned, plus Ranma
probably won't miss the chance to tease her about how far behind
him she still is. She'll want to prove herself, and that means she
might go out looking for trouble! Maybe not Shampoo, maybe she will
wait for you to tell her she's ready for that fight. But what if
my precious little girl decides she's learned enough to go up against
Kodachi Kuno?!" Soun still woke up in a cold sweat some nights,
remembering the vicious tricks the youngest Kuno had unleashed against
Ranma-chan so long ago. What if Akane hadn't twisted her ankle the
night before that match? What if she thought she still had something
to prove there, and a few weeks of Genma's proposed training prompted
her to go after it?! It had been hard enough to watch Akane battle
it out with Natsume and Kurumi. Only the knowledge that his true
daughter's life wasn't on the line, combined with the certainty
that Ranma would keep coming back until victory was his, had allowed
Soun to handle that crisis as well as he had. "I thought we
were agreed that Ranma would handle the serious challenges around
here!"

"Maybe I could teach her something that wouldn't have that
kind of effect," Genma mused. He had spent a good bit of time
yesterday thinking about Akane's request, and pondering how it might
impact the bigger picture of his life. There was one last real card
he had to play in the game of that bigger picture, a trump he'd
held back for a long time now. By no means had he made up his mind
on the subject yet, but if he took that route it should be easy
to prevent the situation that had Soun so worried. If he handled
it right, it might go much further than that. "I need some
more time to think about this, old friend. For now, how about this:
I'll agree to train Akane, but I'll tell her I need a few days to
consider what we'll be working on, where to start and what exercises
to use, that sort of thing. That'll give you and me both time to
think and talk about what I'll really be showing to her."

"…I guess that's good enough for now," Soun conceded.
"But remember, Saotome. If it looks like this is actually going
to put Akane in more danger instead of getting her out of it, I'll
put a stop to it right away."

"Believe me, that's just the way I want it. I'm not about
to let this threaten our promise to unite the schools," Genma
reassured him. "In fact, maybe it'll even help out with that."
It was by no means a fully-fledged idea yet, but the elder Saotome
thought he could sense the beginnings of inspiration fluttering
at the edges of his consciousness. If he really did teach that
to Akane, surely there was a way to use it to bring her and
her fiancé closer together….

"Really? How?"

"Give me more time to think it through," Genma repeated.
"Neither one of us wants to think about it, but we both know
the Amazons came up with a great plan this time and carried it through
perfectly. We need a real counterattack, something better than just
putting an engagement ring in a box for Ranma to give to Akane."
Curse Shampoo and Cologne anyway for posing this much of a threat,
and making him work so hard on something that should have been in
the bag long ago. Genma didn't mind putting forth whatever effort
he needed to help his son grow to mastery of the Art, but with all
the dues he'd paid before now in his life, that ought to be the
only real concern left to him. Unfortunately, someone seemed not
to have delivered that memo to the universe at large.

The breeze whistled through Ranma's hair as he leapt from rooftop
to rooftop. The streets below weren't particularly crowded, were
certainly less bustling than they would be in another forty-five
minutes, but he didn't feel like limiting himself to them just now.

Part of him was still a little on edge, expecting trouble to jump
out and hit him when he least expected it. The feeling had been
with him all day at Furinkan, and had only heightened as each class
passed without the anticipated furor rearing its head. He'd fully
expected to spend the entire day answering questions and dodging
water from disbelieving students. Instead most people had kept their
distance, though he had gotten plenty of stares.

Hiroshi and Daisuke had been the two biggest exceptions, cornering
him at lunch, dragging him away before he could even think about
eating with Akane or Ukyo, pulling him off to a secluded area and
demanding to know the whole story. Ranma still couldn't make up
his mind whether he was ticked off about that conversation or not.
The part where they'd lambasted him for willingly giving up something
that — according to them — most guys would kill to have…
that hadn't left too pleasant a taste in his mouth. On the other
hand, despite their initial vehemence the duo had actually listened
to his counterargument, and even conceded that having Tatewaki Kuno
chase after your "better half" might be too high a price
for a self-respecting guy to pay after all.

He'd also learned from them that Nabiki was selling all the details
of this latest change in his life, raking in wads of yen that Ranma
knew he'd never see. That was irritating, if not much of a surprise.
On the other hand, he'd been surprised and pleased to hear why Kuno
hadn't yet put in an appearance today — apparently, Akane
had injured him enough to keep him away from class for a day or
two. Considering the kind of abuse the kendoist regularly shrugged
off, Ranma decided that this unexpected bonus more than outweighed
Nabiki's usual profiteering.

Once he'd learned of said profiteering, the general lack of questions
had made more sense. Everyone was still buying what Nabiki had to
sell. Sooner or later that would wind down, and then he fully expected
he'd be receiving more direct attention and interrogation. In fact,
it probably would have happened by the end of the day today.

Ranma paused as he landed from his latest jump, and sent one smug
glance back over his shoulder. Furinkan was just visible in the
distance. Everyone else was still cooped up inside, but he had cut
his last class period entirely. Avoiding the paparazzi populace
of his school was nice, although Ranma realized he was only delaying
the inevitable. Respite for today just meant tomorrow would see
him playing catch-up. But since it had to be faced sooner or later,
and since there was a very good unrelated reason to skip out early,
he might as well enjoy the freedom he had right now.

'Nope, I don't think Akane would be too happy if I told her
I was gonna head to the Amazons' place and talk to Shampoo.'
At the very least she'd undoubtedly insist on coming along with
him, and for what he had to say that was absolutely not acceptable.
'Yeah, that'd be just great. I can see it now — me trying
to convince Shampoo to get some Nannichuan shipped here for Ryoga,
Akane standing there listening to it all.' Once again Ranma
found himself grateful that he no longer shared his final class
of the day with the youngest Tendo.

At least this way he could speak frankly with Shampoo, discussing
the issue of Ryoga and curses without any need for deception or
guarding his words. All Akane needed to know was stuff she could
hear after the fact: that he'd arranged for Shampoo to wash away
what she had done to the Lost Boy. She would certainly be happy
to hear that, Ranma knew. Hopefully she'd be happy enough to let
slide whatever he'd be promising Shampoo within the next half hour.
Ranma knew this wasn't going to come cheap. He hoped she wouldn't
hold out for something exorbitant like ten dates. He knew he'd pay
even that price if he had to, in order to do this one last thing
for Ryoga, but he didn't want to think about the kind of suffering
it would entail. 'Akane might be willing to cut me some slack,
but all the slack in the world wouldn't let her swallow something
like that. I'd just as soon avoid getting flattened like an okonomiyaki.'

*Ding Ding!* *Wham!*

"Please tell me this ain't the same roof as last time,"
he mumbled into the shingles.

"Shampoo eighteen, Ranma nothing." By contrast to Ranma's
barely-audible complaint, Shampoo's comment fairly glowed with satisfaction,
cheerfulness, and good-natured mischief. Wide-eyed innocence was
nowhere to be seen. "I make up for this by let you have all
you can eat at restaurant whenever you come by this week."
Touching down with one leg, she shifted her bike from Ranma to the
roof. "You know, Airen, there one other part of this training
I not mention last time."

"Which is?" Ranma inquired as he got to his feet and
dusted himself off, wondering whether this impact really had hurt
less than the last. Maybe he was just imagining it, but it did kind
of seem that way.

"To be aware of incoming attack." Shampoo's expression
shifted toward pensiveness. "Ranma make good progress on endurance
part, but not seem so good on this one. Not in this training, not
in other times when girl is attacking you. Is blind spot, maybe?"

Poor social skills notwithstanding, Ranma knew better than to discuss
the concept of guys holding back against girls with an Amazon. 'Okay,
change the subject, change the subject quick…' "Actually
I'm glad I ran into you now, Shampoo. Or is it the other way around?"
he asked wryly. "I was on my way to your place to talk to you
about something."

Shampoo blinked. "Really?" A smile lit up her face like
a sunrise, and with ruthless abandon she pushed away all thoughts
of the customers waiting for their delivery orders.

"Yep." Ranma paused, taking a look around the general
surroundings. This wasn't the highest rooftop in the general vicinity,
but it seemed secure enough. He sat down, Shampoo following suit
a moment later. "It's about Ryoga. I was hoping you could do
something about his curse."

Shampoo blinked again. "We not already have this talking?"

"Not the pig curse. Believe it or not, he found me yesterday
when both of us were flying, and we talked for a while. And when
I say 'believe it or not'…" Ranma shook his head, still
marveling at what he was about to say. "He doesn't like his
new curse. He actually doesn't like it, not even a little bit."

The Amazon shrugged. "Ranma expect something else? I did not.
Knew all along he would hate this change. You think he just going
to shrug and forget about not be able to play as Akane's pet no
more?"

"No, it's not that. And it took a lot to pound it through
his thick skull, but Ryoga finally agreed that what he'd been doing
as P-chan was wrong."

Shampoo gave him one heck of a skeptical stare. She'd seen her
beloved do some amazing things, but none quite on the order of the
claim he'd just made.

"This isn't about losin' the old curse," Ranma continued.
"It's about the new one, and how well it fits him and his life.
Or doesn't, I mean. He… I guess I can kinda understand it,
the way he explained it, but Shampoo… he really doesn't like
to fly. At all."

The Amazon mulled that thought over. It was surprising, though
she didn't feel nearly as much shock as Ranma had. Then again, this
was primarily because Ranma had fully expected Ryoga to get over
his initial fury once he found out what his new form allowed him
to do, whereas Shampoo hadn't bothered to give it that much thought.
She'd saved her musings for how this action would make things better
for Ranma.

Still, it was strange to hear that Ryoga really hadn't found any
sort of satisfaction in his new ability. "Why not?" she
asked.

"From what he said, it's kind of like it makes his bad sense
of direction go into overdrive. Put Ryoga in the sky and give him
freedom to go anywhere he chooses, and that's the last time he'll
see anybody or anyplace he recognizes for who knows how long."
Ranma spoke quietly, still feeling a curious sense of discontinuity.
On the one hand, he did feel sorry for Ryoga, especially considering
the pain with which the Lost Boy had spoken. On the other, it was
still hard to attach such negative concepts to something that was
so beneficial in his life. "He told me he's tired of being
so alone."

Shampoo considered this in silence for awhile. "Maybe Shampoo
understand. Is strange to hear, though," she said. "For
what flying like for you and me, strange to think it so bad for
Ryoga."

"Yeah, well, you know ol' Bacon Breath. He kinda gets a lot
of things backwards," Ranma said. "Guess this is just
another one of those."

"Maybe…" Shampoo said. "Now that Ranma say
it like that, though, it make me wonder…."

"Huh? Wonder what?"

"Wonder how many other people would think like that, if they
got Falcon curse too. Even without stupid Ryoga problem with getting
lost in sky. Maybe many people would not like at all, maybe even
most would not see it as such good thing," Shampoo mused. It
was kind of a nice thought, to consider that she and Ranma might
have even more in common through their reaction to this curse, tempting
to believe that it was even stronger proof of how right they were
for each other. Then, remembering something Cologne had mentioned,
she amended, "No, wait. That not right. Great-Grandmother say
that now Jusenkyo open to Amazons to use, many of them also learning
to fly."

"I kinda suspect it's just Ryoga who'd have a problem with
it," Ranma said. "Well, maybe Akane too. Stubborn as she
is and as ticked as she's been about all this stuff, I don't think
she could admit a Falcon curse was a good thing even if having one
saved her life."

"Hmmph. Shampoo not so sure about that," the Amazon grumbled.
"Akane would probably jump for chance to take own curse. That
way she could follow after Ranma whenever you go to fly, stay right
beside you and make sure you not doing anything she not like."

"Do not go there," Ranma commanded, fighting
off a brief chill.

"You not like the idea, right?"

"Gee, let me think," he said, with sarcasm thick enough
to spread on toast. "What's the best part of flying? It's being
up there where nobody's gonna dump any of that stuff on me, nobody's
gonna try and tell me what I gotta do and what I can't. It's making
my own way and my own choices, without Akane or Pop or anybody tryin'
to cut them down to just the ones they're happy with. It's the best
time to myself I ever get."

"Is kind of the same for me," Shampoo replied quietly.
"Japan is so different from home village, so full of people,
choked full it seem. Sometimes feel like Shampoo is choking too.
But to get up there, alone, away from all that… is freedom
and recovery. Medicine even better than anything Great-Grandmother
keep in her cabinet."

A moment of wistful silence stretched between both teens. Shampoo
eventually broke it. "Ranma?"

Somewhat concerned by the tentative way she'd spoken, he replied,
"Yeah?"

"Shampoo hear what you just say about how is good to get time
to own self while you fly. Was going to ask if we do that together
again soon, but if it really not any good for you… should
Shampoo just forget it?" It cost her a good bit to say that,
but the last thing she wanted to do was cut down on the advantage
giving him this gift had gained her. There would be plenty of time
for togetherness in the future, Shampoo reminded herself once again.
It was the thought that allowed her to stomach the fact that Ranma
had to stay at the Tendos' place for the present, and it would let
her accept it if he didn't want to share more flights with her anytime
soon.

"I don't mind the company once in a while," Ranma said.
Then, with a grin, he added, "Better you than Ryoga."
Shampoo giggled, breaking out in a big smile. Ranma held his grin
for a moment, then sobered. "But gettin' back to him. I know
this is kind of a pain, Shampoo, but I wanted to finally settle
things there once and for all. I figured giving him a Falcon curse
would actually be handin' him a huge blessing, but it really didn't
work out that way after all. So I was hoping you could maybe have
some of the Amazons at home mail a cask of Nannichuan out here."

Shampoo regarded him with a hooded stare. "Was you also hoping
to use leftover on Genma, instead of having to wait for winter and
take trip to Jusenkyo?"

'Dang, I knew she'd catch it right off the bat.' So much
for the faint hope Shampoo would agree and set the price for her
aid before realizing that she'd be losing that trip with him. "Now
that you mention it…."

"Not sure if I can do this at all," the Amazon replied
shortly. "Will have to talk to Great-Grandmother, about what
new rules is for use Jusenkyo on someone else."

"I'd be really grateful if you could do it, Shampoo…"
That was as subtle as he felt capable of being. It still felt better
than going the 'blatantly obvious' route; Ranma didn't want to come
right out and say, 'I'll throw in a few dates to sweeten the deal.'

"Is good, because something like this not come cheap."
Shampoo stated this as firmly as she could, desperately hoping that
Ranma wouldn't pick this moment to think back over all the things
she'd done for him in the past and realize that if he just stretched
his arms around her and gave her a real kiss, she'd be helpless
to resist agreeing to just about anything.

'<I wonder if I could get as many as ten dates….>'
As tempting as that thought was, though, there was another that
was very appealing too. '<Should I ask him to train with me
instead? It might be a good idea to go ahead and fix that up now,
instead of waiting.>' She had always intended to get him
to join her in the lessons Cologne was now teaching her, but the
previous plan had been 'wait until I've learned enough, then kick
Airen's butt as motivation to get him to accept the offer.' But
considering what had happened at Furinkan recently, it might be
better to have him start learning these techniques right away.

On the other hand, she already had a good plan for getting him
to train with her, and it would be awfully nice to get a bunch of
honest-to-goodness dates with him on top of that…

"Shampoo not know," the Amazon eventually answered. "Need
time to think about it. And anyway need to talk to Great-Grandmother
and see if can even do what Ranma ask."

"Thanks, Shampoo. So… you know, last time we flew together
I wasn't in good enough shape to show ya how much I really like
this curse. You wanna meet up on top of the Tokyo Tower in about
an hour and see just who can fly rings around who?" That ought
to help her get over any disappointment over losing out on the China
trip.

'<Subtle he isn't.>' But that was just the way Shampoo
liked it. She gave him her best predatory grin, and said, "Is
a date."

"Been a while since we did something like this, Pop."
Ranma spared only the barest minimum of attention necessary to form
the sentence. The rest of his mind was focused squarely on the familiar
figure sharing the Tendo back yard with him, standing roughly ten
feet away. Both father and son were keeping their distance at the
moment, but that didn't mean either was motionless. They were slowly
circling each other like a pair of tomcats (though at least one
of them would have violently denied the comparison), each waiting
for the other's guard to slip.

"I hope you're not backing down, boy." At that very moment,
Genma's maneuvering brought him into the perfect position for the
early morning sunlight to gleam menacingly off his glasses. "A
student of Anything Goes must be ready to rise to any and all challenges."

"Yeah, I'd say that's words to live by," Ranma retorted
with a smirk. "Especially the challenge of kicking his lazy
old man's tired butt."

"Bah, I may have taught you all you know, but I haven't taught
you all I know, Ranma."

While he would have been able to shrug off any insult, this particular
verbal gambit of Genma's caught him off-guard. "You—
what?!" Ranma stumbled ever so slightly, unable to suppress
the instinctive gape at Genma's claim to having taught all his son
knew.

In an instant Genma abandoned the circling for position, blasting
forward to strike in the moment of his son's weakness. With a mental
curse, Ranma gave a tremendous leap backward, thankful that his
current position relative to the nearest structure gave him plenty
of space and time to recover in midair. Genma was following an instant
later, but age and guile and experience couldn't match the sheer
physical advantage Ranma's youth and — let's face it —
superior physique allowed. Genma's own leap would have been equally
impressive to almost any spectator, but it was just enough slower
than Ranma's that the younger Saotome had enough time to prepare
himself, land on the top of the Tendo boundary wall, and bounce
away again toward the roof.

By contrast, Genma stopped on the wall, turning to face his son
but not following. "You know, the whole point of this exercise
is to brush up on skills you don't use that often," he rebuked.

"So what? You're saying you wanted me to smack these
into your head as I passed over ya?" Ranma shot back, gesturing
with the nunchaku he held in either hand. His father was similarly
armed. Both kept their weapons spinning at a constant, steady hum,
necessitating them to speak their verbal banter a little louder
than normal. "Sure thing, Pop!" He had the advantage of
the high ground now, and had no intention of letting the fight continue
as it had begun. It was annoying enough to be the first to be forced
into retreat. Time to settle the score. With a fierce kiai, Ranma
pushed away from the roof, zooming toward his father with the power
and ferocity of his cursed form diving toward its next meal.

"Next time don't announce it like that!" Genma shouted,
declining to be reduced to a grease smear. Slower than his son he
might be, but Ranma's pause and taunt had given him enough time
to prepare. Even as Ranma left the roof and the first word left
Genma's mouth his legs were tensing for his own jump, and a split
second later the older Saotome was airborne in a high forward flip.

Ranma adjusted his own plan on the fly, paying no heed to what
Genma was saying, realizing that his father's maneuver would bring
the old man just high enough above him that Genma could bounce a
nunchaku off his son's back. It took every ounce of skill he had,
but he twisted himself through an incredibly fast one-eighty degree
turn, ending with his back facing toward the ground and both his
weapons coming up to block Genma's descending attack. The older
Saotome had only struck with one of his own nunchaku, and the one
in his left hand at that. The right was held off to the side in
what wasn't even a decent guarding position. Ranma didn't exactly
have the time to verbalize the complete thought, 'If he thinks he's
gonna hold back on me like that and not get pounded to a pulp he's
got another think coming,' but that was more or less the concept
that flashed across his mind.

In the next instant, as Genma somehow managed to first tangle both
Ranma's nunchaku with his left, then spin the one in his right hand
so fiercely as to alter both Saotomes' midair flight, Ranma was
forced to abandon it. Instead of less than a second's remaining
air time until impact with the boundary wall, the two were now describing
a long, high, lazy arc toward the Tendo rooftop. The kick that the
younger Saotome was already bending around to deliver missed entirely,
due to the unexpected shift. Genma himself managed to land a blow
squarely, bouncing his right nunchaku off his son's head. The blow
lacked any significant force, due to the awkwardness of shifting
his focus so quickly, but both Saotomes knew well that it was the
thought that counted.

Ranma bit off a curse, and kicked into a higher gear than he usually
used when sparring with his father. Releasing one nunchaku entirely,
and trusting in the tangled state of the weapons combined with his
remaining grip to avoid complete disarmament, he struck toward Genma's
left hand with Amaguriken speed. Excessive force was neither needed
nor desired; the unexpected high-speed pokes to his knuckles had
Genma's hand spasming open and releasing his hold on the three tangled
pairs of chained sticks.

Pulling back hard with both hands bought Ranma enough rotational
velocity to transform his flight from "parallel with Genma's"
to "angled toward the ground". The move forcefully untangled
the nunchaku, sending the two not currently clenched in someone's
grip flying in different directions. Landing only for an instant,
he bounced back into the air, catching the nearest weapon, noting
with some disgust that the other was flying toward a spot only four
feet away from his father's landing zone. The old man wouldn't have
had to exert himself to catch it even if he'd been in panda form,
for cryin' out loud!

Ranma's latest flight touched down on top of the dojo. "Not
bad so far, Pop," he said with his best taunting smirk. "When
do you want me stop holding back so much?"

"Bah, I'm the one going easy on you for your sake," Genma
shot back. "Now get off there, I don't want you disturbing
Akane."

The smirk disappeared, replaced by a grimace. Ranma would just
as soon not have been reminded that the tomboy was in there right
now, and had been since before his father woke him up this morning.
"Jeez, you think you didn't already make that clear?"
he asked, suppressing the impulse to charge in for another attack.
He could wait a few seconds in the interest of ignoring Genma's
command. "What's this big, important, mysterious training you
got going on with Akane, that I can't help out with or even watch?"
The smirk was back now. "It ain't like she's ever gonna manage
something like this!" And now he leapt, jumping not toward
Genma but rather directly into the empty air above the koi pond.
A second later, however, he had twisted around to face his father,
his body angled like a torpedo, his arms bent slightly down and
the nunchaku spinning for all they were worth. It was considerably
harder than he'd expected it to be, but Ranma managed to alter his
flight path as radically as his father had just a handful of moments
ago, curving around to zoom straight toward Genma.

The elder Saotome gave three quick skips backward, traversing from
one end of the roof to the other. "That's not what I'm teaching
her, Ranma, but you of all people ought to respect someone trying
to learn new skills!"

"Yeah, whatever," Ranma said as he landed at the spot
his father had abandoned, unable to come up with a snappy comeback
for a remark he recognized as basically true. It might have more
of an impact if Akane had ever once tried to learn any of the advanced
skills she'd watched him or Ryoga training in, though. Not bothering
to say that, he drove forward on the attack again, this time staying
grounded on the roof. Genma charged forward to meet him "All
I'm saying," he jinked his head to one side as Genma's attack
forced his own left weapon's course dangerously close, "is
that Akane ain't never," he forced a tiny opening in Genma's
guard, and bounced a glancing blow off his father's ribs, "trained
anything like seriously." A furious exchange between father
and son took all the concentration he could spare for the next several
moments, leaving nothing for speech.

Once the storm of spinning sticks quieted a bit, both Saotomes
jumped back and away to recuperate. Genma had received more hits,
but none of them had been at full power and the elder Saotome's
natural padding absorbed much of the impact. By contrast Ranma had
taken only one blow directly, but it had landed right on his crazy
bone and he was more than happy to get some time to recover.

"Well, maybe she wants to change that," Genma pronounced.
"I know you don't think much of your fiancée's skills,
boy, but at least you ought to be able to respect and help her once
she gets serious about improving them."

"That'd cut a lot more ice if she really was trying to improve
for her own sake," Ranma snapped back. "Instead of just
wanting to take Shampoo down."

"That's funny," Genma challenged. "It seems to me
that each major technique you've learned here, you learned because
you needed to beat someone. Did that somehow slip your mind, boy?"

Ranma gave his father a flat stare. "What exactly is your
point? Those are the only times I've had the opportunity. Unless
you're sayin' I shoulda gone to the old freak and asked him really,
really nicely if he'd maybe teach me one of those things he's unloaded
every so often. You really want me to drop a Happo Fire Bomb on
your head during one of these matches, Pop?"

Genma shuddered at the thought, not only of that but at what the
Master would probably have asked of his son before teaching any
really powerful secrets. He'd never have been able to see Nodoka
again, that was for sure… either Ranma would be disqualified
forever from passing her standard of manliness, or he'd have learned
something that would put him a little too far over the finish line.
Even Nodoka would consider it too much of a good thing if her son
ended up seducing the female half of Furinkan.

"And what about it anyway?" Ranma continued. "Special
techniques are great and all, but for where I am in the Art right
now they ain't the most important thing. The basics are still where
I need to make sure I'm always growing. Speed, accuracy, balance,
strength, control, stamina, endurance…." he paused for
a moment, zoning out while picturing himself flattened under an
Amazon and her bicycle. Genma decided not to blast forward and take
advantage of the opening, since this discussion was ultimately more
important than the sparring itself. It was a very close thing, though.

"And I've been working on all those things all this time,"
his son continued. "You think Akane can say the same thing?
Not a chance in the world, old man. The best you could say for her
is she's got a lot of strength, and she's kept on building it a
little higher." Kind of sad that Shampoo was still much stronger
by his estimation, but that was what being born in a culture that
had bred for stuff like that for three thousand years would do for
you. Not exactly fair, but neither was the world in general.

"Bah. That was then and this is now," Genma grumbled.
"Though I will say that it's good to see you so focused on
what Akane needs for optimal improvement. When the two of you are
married, it will be you helping her to grow as best she needs to."

"Give me a break," Ranma snapped. "Or better yet,
just give me a straight answer." His eyes narrowed dangerously.
"You and I both know why she's doing this. She wants to be
better than Shampoo, wants to be able to beat the girl — the
Amazon who'd just won her village championship tournament
on the day we met her. And you and I also both know that it would
take years of serious work before Akane could even get to where
Shampoo is now, and Shampoo herself ain't exactly gonna stop trainin'
and growin' during that time. Kinda hard to do that when you're
living under the rooftop of the leader of the entire tribe, you
know? So it ain't like Akane's gonna get an advantage cause of her
getting better and Shampoo slacking off. You know this just as well
as I do. So tell me, Pop… have you spelled this out for her?"
Realizing that might be a bit much to ask, especially considering
that his father hadn't suffered any severe beat-downs lately, he
amended, "Or at least, have ya kept quiet on any stupid promises?
All I really want to hear from you is that ya haven't told Akane
she'll be able to beat Shampoo with whatever mysterious training
this is you've got her doing."

"Those are fair enough questions," Genma allowed. Unfortunately,
there was no way he was ready to answer them truthfully, not now,
not to Ranma at least. "The fact of the matter is, son —
AN OPENING!!" And with that, the elder Saotome drove forward,
initiating a renewal of hostilities with all the ferocity and power
he could muster.

Several chaotic minutes later, an aching, battered, panting, bruised
Ranma stood in the middle of the back yard, with one foot poised
triumphantly atop his father's flattened form. Several dozen shingles
were missing from the roof, a fact which would certainly not reduce
Nabiki's recent animosity, but Ranma was cheerfully oblivious to
both these truths. "Yeah, that's what you get, Pop. Now, getting
back to our discussion…?"

It was a seriously painful method of gaining victory, Genma conceded
in the privacy of his own thoughts, but Anything Goes stressed that
if that was the only kind you could get, you took it and were thankful
for it. His voice was more of a groan than speech, his body was
as limp as a filleted slab of swordfish, and his face was flat against
the ground with his eyes closed. As such, it was impossible for
Ranma to pick up on any sign of dishonesty as he answered, "Of
course I haven't told her she'll be able to defeat Shampoo. She
might or might not think it, but I haven't ever told her anything
that would let her believe that. I'm just trying to help her improve
her skills. And please don't butt in yet, boy. You know how it makes
her get all edgy and defensive when she has to face how much better
you are."

"Yeah, whatever," Ranma answered. Truth be told, it didn't
feel all that great to get excluded from these mysterious meetings
Genma was having with Akane in the dojo, but today's sparring session
had worked wonders for letting out the worst of that irritation.
The unusual nature of today's training had been the best challenge
his father had provided in months, and he'd even learned something
new. Despite the aches and bruises in his body, his spirit was feeling
more than generous enough to agree. "I'll let you walk her
through whatever baby steps you've got her on. But, Pop…"
Here he bent down, grasped his father's shoulder, and lifted the
older man up enough to look him in the eye. He wasn't quite generous
enough not to get one last bit of smack-talking in, as well as a
reminder of just who had won today's little match. "If I see
ya digging a pit and gettin' Kasumi to round up a bunch of strays,
I'm gonna make you think this morning was a nice relaxin' massage."

"I'd like to think I learned my lesson about that particular
technique," Genma protested. "At least, after the sixth
time going back only made things worse for you."

Ranma's eyes gleamed, and his lips curved into an involuntary snarl.
"Don't remind me," he growled, rather unfairly considering
just who had brought the topic up. "If you weren't already
flattened like a smashed slug, I'd give you a few good licks right
now!"

"Ranma! Mr. Saotome! Breakfast!" Kasumi called from the
porch.

There was a blur, a whoosh, and a wind which whipped the eldest
Tendo daughter's hair in a cascade of brown. Once it was no longer
blocking her vision, she turned and saw both Saotomes perched eagerly
at the table. "Mmm, smells great, Kasumi," Genma pronounced,
salivating with anticipation.

Akane slid the door shut behind her and tossed her bookbag onto
her bed without a second thought. She had homework to do, but it
would wait. She headed to her closet, and proceeded to exchange
her schoolday clothing for a crisp, freshly-laundered gi. She tied
the belt around her waist, pulling the knot as tight as her facial
expression.

Today was Tuesday, the sixth day of her training under Genma. It
hadn't taken long for him to establish her routine; each morning,
she would train for two hours, partly supervised by Genma, partly
on her own when he went to spar with Ranma. The morning session
meant she couldn't get in weekday jogging any longer, but when she'd
pointed that out to Genma he had stated flatly that for where she
was now, that kind of exercise was worse than nothing at all. Akane
didn't know how that was supposed to work, but since she was the
one asking for favors here, she hadn't been willing to push too
hard.

The morning session was the lighter portion of her workload. Her
sensei expected her to come straight home after school and proceed
directly to the dojo, where she would spend the next four hours
under his full-time supervision.

It was hard.

It was harder by far than any training she'd done in her life.

And she'd be damned if she went to this much trouble without getting
what she wanted. What Genma had promised he would give her.

"One more chance," Akane muttered grimly as she headed
down the stairs. "He was the one who trained Ranma, after all."
She passed through the back door and headed toward the dojo. "He
knows what he's doing a lot better than I do." But while Akane
knew that was true, it wasn't necessarily true in a good way.

She opened the dojo door and entered the building. As expected,
Genma was already there waiting for her, positioned in his best
"wise old sensei" stance. Also as expected, there was
a large crate resting against the wall, a short distance away from
the Saotome master. "Hello, Akane," he said.

"Hello, Mr. Saotome," she returned. In their very first
session she had offered the full formality due to a sensei. Genma
had snorted louder and more obnoxiously than she could even remember
from his son, and replied in no uncertain terms that they weren't
going to be wasting their time with those kinds of frills and obsolete
old traditions. She was Akane and he was Mr. Saotome — unless,
he'd added, she wanted to call him Father-in-law.

Since it was their first session, she had still been riding the
emotional high from imagining herself overtaking Shampoo and finally
giving the Amazon what she deserved. As a result, Akane had only
replied with a thin-lipped, vaguely tolerant smile.

Neither said anything more for the moment, as Akane began her warm-up
stretches. Genma watched, and Akane kept one eye on him in turn.
Two days ago, the old panda had proved he wasn't above launching
an attack even in this preliminary period. This time, however, Genma
just waited patiently for her to conclude.

"All right, I'm ready," she pronounced when she was confident
that she'd put in enough preparation.

"Very well. Come over here." Genma closed the distance
to the crate, with Akane following right behind him. He opened the
lid to reveal the largest quantity of marbles Akane had seen in
her entire life. "This afternoon's exercise will be—"

"Stop. Right. There." Akane gritted the words out with
some difficulty, as most of her focus was taken up in keeping her
temper. Genma complied, shifting his posture away from the crate
to face her directly with a mild, inquisitive look on his face.
It didn't quite reach his eyes, but Akane was in no mood to take
note of the gleam that the Saotome master couldn't quite suppress.

"Right now, it's marbles," she said, the words starting
slowly but picking up steam. "This morning you made me practice
ten different katas with the ceiling rigged to randomly shoot me
with Super Soakers. Yesterday afternoon you had me blindfolded and
my hands tied behind my back while I tried to stop you smacking
me with pillows. Yesterday morning it was golf balls dropping
out of the ceiling and I had to catch them and throw them at a training
dummy with my hands covered in grease! The afternoon before that,
you—"

"Is this going somewhere?" Genma asked mildly. "If
you want a few more minutes before the training starts," he
took his first casual step backward as Akane began walking toward
him, her eye twitching and her fingers clenching and unclenching,
"just go back to stretching."

"Every day, no, every stupid time we meet for you to train
me it's something different!" Akane yelled. "Twelve sessions
now, and each one was something totally different! I kept quiet
at first, because after I thought about each one I could see something
it could teach me. But I haven't learned them yet! I haven't mastered
any of these things yet, and you just keep jumping on to
the next one! You're supposed to be helping me learn to do better,
not just keep dreaming that I'm okay the way I am! Are you even
going to try teaching me, or do you just want to humor me until
I give up and quit bothering you?!"

She paused for a moment, struggling for breath and composure, then
said, "So help me, if you don't start taking this seriously,
taking me seriously, I'll… I'll…" She knew
there was one place she could hit him where it hurt, and though
it wouldn't feel very good to her either, Akane Tendo was more than
ready to make some sacrifices in the name of what she'd committed
to. "I'll tell Kasumi not to cook you anything anymore.
I'll be the one fixing all your meals, and for you I won't even
try to make them good ones."

Genma just snorted, unfazed by the threat. "Only six days
and you already know what I need to do to train you better than
I do myself. Congratulations, Akane," he said, sarcasm dripping
off the words. "If Ranma had learned that quickly, by now I'd
have him taking on the Master and the Amazon Matriarch at the same
time and winning." Akane's fists clenched tighter, and an even
more murderous expression settled on her face. "Or maybe you
just need an explanation? Better yet, how about a demonstration.
Pick out one of those marbles to throw at me, if you would be so
kind."

The box's size and position against the wall made it just a little
too difficult to simply hurl all its contents at him at once. Akane
did as requested, jamming her hand into the mass of marbles and
rummaging around before pulling out a large, steel shooter. "Okay.
Are you ready now, oh wise and gracious teacher?" she growled,
trying and nearly succeeding to match Genma's level of sarcasm.

"One moment." Saying this, Genma took one step to the
side and turned so that he was facing her straight on. He then took
one slow step backward, leaving a gap of about three feet between
the two of them. From some of the things they had done in their
previous sessions, Akane was bitterly aware that he undoubtedly
knew some trick or technique for dodging even with such a slight
distance between them. So far it was looking like the same pattern
she'd seen before: she would throw and he would dodge or otherwise
negate the attack, she would be impressed at his performance or
at least acknowledge that she couldn't manage it, he would have
her spend the rest of their time trying to match his feat, she would
make some progress by the end of the session but by no means would
she have learned everything she could, and next time he would jump
to something else.

'Well, not this time,' she thought bitterly, feeling the
comfortably solid weight of the second, hidden shooter she had palmed
while retrieving the obvious first one. 'If he can't try something
new, I will.'

"All right, Akane. Try to hit me with the marble."

Akane swung her hand back then brought it sharply forward, releasing
the marble to fly straight and true to Genma's forehead. She had
to sacrifice most of the power she could have put into the throw,
due to the second marble still hiding in her hand. She would hit
him with that one at full force while he was focused on whatever
he was planning to do about the first one.

She hadn't expected him to stand there and take the hit directly.
She certainly hadn't expected the marble to strike and sink
completely beneath his skin.

She barely had time to gasp, drop the other marble, and begin to
stumble feebly forward before the image of Genma vanished. The marble
dropped to the ground with a thunk of steel on wood, echoing
a second after the impact from the one she hadn't thrown. Genma
himself was revealed as his decoy disappeared; the elder Saotome
was standing four feet behind his previous apparent position. "M…
Mr. Saotome… how?" Akane managed.

"You've seen this before, Akane. Not the same application,"
Genma admitted, "but the same principle. Think about it."

"The same thing? Seen it before?" Akane blinked several
times, all other emotions now buried under a slew of befuddlement.
"I don't remember ever seeing anything like that from Grandmaster
Happosai."

A rather louder thunk resounded through the dojo now,
as Genma's face collided with the floor. "Not him, me!"
he bellowed as he picked himself up. "And DON'T SAY HIS NAME!"

"You?" Akane said dubiously. A second later, her mind
cleared enough to realize that doubt wasn't really an appropriate
response here, since they were talking about something Genma had
just clearly demonstrated he was capable of doing. And there was
one time she could think of that the old panda had pulled off something
even more impressive than this… and one time when he almost
had… "Is this something to do with that trick to make
a big illusion of yourself?" she asked.

"Illusion, my hairy panda butt," Genma snapped, still
disgruntled at her response. "Just because it's not a flesh
and blood body doesn't make it any less real. Your aura is as important
a part of you as your skin is… at least, that's true for a
real martial artist."

"And you're going to teach me how to use that?" Akane
asked, excitement at the sheer possibilities overriding the response
she might otherwise have made to his last little comment.

"Yes, I am," Genma affirmed. "Now do you see the
point of all the exercises I've had you doing?"

"No. I haven't got a clue," she admitted.

He gave a satisfied smile. "I'm glad to hear you admit it,
Akane. Stubborn pride can be a terrible hindrance in your quest
for the Art." Of course, if she'd had Ranma's sheer talent,
then stubborn pride could become an asset. During his and Ranma's
long years on the road, there had been more times than Genma could
remember when Ranma had refused to admit difficulty or ask for help
with a task Genma had set him. Usually this led to the boy pushing
forward with everything he had and learning whatever lesson was
being taught solely on his own resources. Genma believed this was
one of the key factors in his son's superb ability to solve problems,
at least within the realm of the Art, not to mention the levels
of confidence it took to fire off a Moko Takabisha.

On the other hand, it had been a long, long time since Ranma had
looked at him with the expression Akane was wearing now.

Hopefully that wouldn't be true much longer.

"The reason each exercise is different is because you're not
trying to learn any physical lessons from them," the Saotome
master explained in his best "wise old sensei" voice.
"You're performing unfamiliar tasks, striving to overcome your
limits, fighting your body's awkwardness and the frustration that
would choke your mind. The only constants are struggle and change.
That, Akane, is Anything Goes in its heart and soul!"

Akane's eyes were wide now. It might have taken longer to get here
than she would have liked, and the road might have been rockier,
but it felt very good to be hearing this. To be treated like this.
To receive the respect she'd wanted for so long, and no one had
given her. "You haven't even taught Ranma these lessons, have
you?" She couldn't believe that show-off could have something
like this in his bag of tricks without ever using it.

"No, I haven't," Genma replied. "And that's part
of the reason I'm not letting him watch you train. I want him to
stay ignorant of what I'm working on with you until you've reached
a decent level of mastery in the technique. Once you've done that,
once you can show it to him and impress him as much as he needs
to be impressed, I'll let him in on the training as well. You can
help him get up to speed while I oversee the both of you."
It was a good plan, Genma thought. It would mean more time that
Ranma was spending with his real fiancée, growing to respect
her more even as she became better able to understand him.

It would also show a certain boy that his father was more than
what he seemed to think, wasn't just a washed-up old panda with
nothing real left to teach. Genma still remembered the cold hurt
and fear he'd felt so long ago, that day in the Tendo backyard when
his son-turned-daughter had been struggling to learn the Amaguriken,
struggling even to maintain her fighting spirit, and had looked
to him for help. Genma had winged it as best he could, focusing
his chi to boost his speed. He'd failed, completely and utterly,
and riding hard on the heels of his failure had come the Beast from
China, Matriarch Cologne herself, dropping in to effortlessly demonstrate
the move to everyone. The Tendos had ooh'd and ahh'd. Ranma-chan
had found new reserves of determination. And Genma-panda had turned
away and closed his eyes, his slumping posture leaving everything
but his upper head hidden in the waters of the pond.

The very next day he'd begun working on exercises similar to the
ones he was now giving Akane — similar in their goal, at least.

"But I need to warn you, Akane. Don't expect a quick and easy
road to mastery," Genma cautioned. "I suppose you've already
seen enough not to think it would be easy, but it's also true that
there's no quick way to do this. It will take you a long time. It
will take Ranma a long time." It would take him a very long
time to get back the whole of what he'd once had while training
under Happosai, what he hadn't bothered to maintain during his years
on the road with Ranma. He hadn't realized until far too late that
letting this particular set of abilities atrophy would be such a
mistake. Getting his son established in the Art had been Genma's
greatest priority by far during that time, and it had seemed like
a perfectly reasonable exchange to make, to trade his own power
for the time, energy, and focus he needed to mold Ranma into someone
who would one day surpass him.

And now his son had, and Genma wasn't sure how to handle it. There
was pride, certainly, but there were other, far less pleasant feelings
involved when he tried to help his boy in a trial, only to have
Ranma barely acknowledge his attempts and proceed to solve the problem
on his own . Just as bad or worse were the times when someone else
stepped in and put his own attempts to shame. He and Ranma had had
plenty of troubles on the road, but none of those kinds of circumstances.
Where had all the days and years gone?

"How long?" Akane asked, breaking through his fugue.
Judging by the look on her face, the first bloom of elation at what
she was going to learn had now passed. "How long until I've
learned enough to defeat Shampoo?"

Genma gave her a long, cold stare. "That depends on you."
It also depended on her answer to his next question. "Are you
planning to just stop once you manage to accomplish that goal?"

"No, I'm not that stupid," Akane snapped back. "It's
not like she won't go running to her great-grandmother and ask for
a technique of her own. And even if she didn't I'm tired of depending
on Ranma to rescue me. You can count on it, Mr. Saotome —
I'll keep on training and learning too."

"Good. Because this particular path is one you should never
stop walking down."

"I just said I understood that," Akane pointed out.

"No, that's not what I mean. I'm not talking about martial
arts in general," he clarified. "I mean the things we're
working on now. These exercises I'm giving you are designed for
one specific goal, which is to build your chi reserves as quickly
and powerfully as possible."

"My reserves…?" she echoed, thinking back to what
she'd seen that one night at the carnival when demons had escaped
from scribble drawings. Happosai, Genma, and even her father had
formed huge chi-projections to fight them off. And then she thought
back further, to a day many months before that one, when Genma had
tried to use that same technique to face down Happosai. He had only
been able to hold it for a few seconds then, as tired and weary
as he was. "I guess it would take a lot to make a huge copy
of yourself like that," she mused.

"Don't expect to be pulling that one off before your
next birthday has come and gone," Genma stated flatly. There
was no way he could put her through the same level of training the
Master had used on him. Genma estimated that it would take at least
twice as long for Akane to build up that level of power as it originally
had for Soun and himself, and that wasn't even considering the time
it would take for her to learn how to use the techniques. "At
least not if you want it to be solid enough to do anything."

"So what else can I do with this technique?"

"The heart of what I'll be teaching you is to project and
control your aura. It becomes stronger in two ways: as you learn
to control it better, and as your reserves grow wider and deeper.
As for what you can do with it…" Genma gave his best
"wise old sensei" shrug. "You were there when the
Master and the old woman went at it with dueling battle auras. That's
one application you've seen for yourself — projecting energy
that hits harder than a chi blast like Ranma's or Ryoga's, and is
far more controllable. And of course," he gave a smirk that
could have come straight from Ranma, except that it didn't make
any portion of Akane's heart beat faster, "you can project
a separate image of yourself to take a hit for you, and even hide
behind it if it's directly between you and your opponent. It took
me a long time to work out how, but I developed that trick from
seeing the Splitting Cat Hairs.

"You can also keep the energy insubstantial, rather than making
it solid or semisolid. There are at least as many possible uses
for that approach, and maybe more." Genma frowned thoughtfully.
"I think the Master's Now You See Me, Now You Don't is an aura
trick of some kind. To be able to actually turn invisible in the
middle of a fight… even if you can't attack like that, it
would be an amazing advantage. I still haven't worked that one out,
but maybe one day Ranma will. Or perhaps you'll beat him to it,
Akane." He smiled jovially, masking his certainty that the
only way that would happen was if no one ever gave Ranma the idea
to try.

"So what can the energy do by itself? That you know
for sure and can teach me, I mean?"

"Well, the more images you project the easier it is to confuse
whoever you're fighting. If you don't make them solid enough to
hit, they don't take as much power and you can pull it off easier."
That wasn't what Cologne had done; Genma had watched closely enough
to be sure that it hadn't always been the same copy of the old woman
bonking his son over the head. "But you don't even have to
make it something as organized as that. You can let your aura flood
out from you and fill the area around you. When you're fighting
in a convenient enclosed space, like this dojo, it's easier to build
up the concentration high enough to really throw your opponent off.
It will hinder their own chi techniques, and even make them dizzy
and disoriented if you can pump out enough power and they don't
know how to cope."

"Because… it's like they're trying to swim right through
my spirit? But wouldn't that affect me too?"

"Not at any level I can bring you to," Genma admitted.
"I suppose it might be possible to have that much control,
to keep that much awareness and connection to every bit of your
aura while you use it to fill the room. But for me, the only way
I can pull off that kind of link is when I'm forming a bigger version
of myself with my real body at the center. Like that time at the
carnival."

"Or the time you and Dad tried to learn to defeat Grandfather
Happ— oh, all right, the Master with ninja tricks,"
Akane sniped back playfully. "Ranma and I were pretty impressed
for that one second. You'll teach me to do a better job than that,
right?"

"That's exactly what I'm doing," he replied in all sobriety.
"Akane, I already said what we have to focus on now is building
up your reserves. That's something you can't ever afford to stop
doing once you get to a certain level. If you don't at least maintain
them, if you allow them to waste away… like I did… it's
much harder to get them back. That is why I did so poorly
that one time, and it's why I was able to make a better job of it
the next time I had to use the technique. It's taken me the better
part of a year to get my power levels back to where they were after
only three months."

She blinked. "Huh? After a year you got them to where they
were after three months? That doesn't make sense."

"I meant after three months of this training when the Master
first put me and Soun through it." It was one of the few times
Happosai had buckled down and really acted like a sensei, directly
teaching his students and guiding them every step of the way toward
understanding and mastery.

"So… what about Dad?" Akane asked, her brow wrinkling
thoughtfully. "Has he been rebuilding his training like that
too? He did just as well as you did that night at the carnival."

Genma snorted. "No, he didn't. He had to stay in bed and rest
for the next four days."

"So did you!"

"Actually, no. I just grabbed the chance to take a break."
Plus, he'd seen the gleam in Happosai's eye after the dust had settled
that night. If he and Soun hadn't acted that pathetic, chances were
excellent that the Master would have dragged them off on a training
trip. It was never a good idea to show too much potential around
Happosai — witness the things he did to Ranma.

Akane rolled her eyes. "Whatever. But still, how could he
have done that well without the kind of practice you've been doing?
He may have been wiped out afterward, but he kept up with you and
Grandfather H—," she cut herself off, sighing at Genma's
frantic expression and gestures of negation. "With both of
you."

"That's because his Demon Head technique is based on these
same aura principles." Genma smiled. "Soun might not have
kept himself at the level he and I reached back in our youth, but
he'd never let himself get too out of shape to use that. And with
the extra practice he's gotten since we came here…."

"You mean that's also part of this? I can learn to do that
one too?" Akane gasped, her cheeks flushing and her eyes sparkling.
'I guess I know what I'll use for my second win against Shampoo.'

"Perhaps," Genma cautioned. "But I'm going to have
to ask you not to use it on Ranma."

"Okay," Akane said cheerfully. Genma breathed a sigh
of relief, failing to realize that by that she had meant, 'Okay,
you can ask me.'

It was the final full schoolday of the week and the single busiest
time for the Furinkan courtyard, the hour when it saw its greatest
concentration of students. In the morning boys and girls alike would
straggle in at different times, some coming quite early, others
waiting until the last minute, and the rest covering the spectrum
between. But in the afternoon, almost everybody left at the same
time. It was therefore slightly unusual that Akane was able to immediately
catch sight of Ranma as she passed through the final door of Furinkan,
a random gap in the crowd opening at just the right time to show
him waiting for her in his usual spot. He was standing on the edge
of the courtyard, right next to the gate itself.

'At least, it's his usual spot when he's there at all,'
Akane thought with a mixture of concern and irritation. In the month
since Shampoo had come back from China and turned far too many things
upside down, there had been several times when Ranma hadn't waited
for her, had left her behind for reasons of his own. She might agree
somewhat with some of the things he'd done in those times —
like his meeting with Shampoo ten days ago to arrange for her to
undo her dirty trick against Ryoga — but it still rankled
to find him not waiting there for her no matter what the reason.

Of course, thanks to Tatewaki Kuno, there were now more reasons
for him not to be there to meet her than just Ranma wanting to gallivant
off on his own. Those other reasons were potentially even worse,
making Akane's relief all the sharper at seeing her fiancé
waiting for her today.

"Looks like Ranma made it through okay." This was Sayuri,
partly teasing, partly congratulating her friend.

"Mm-hm." Yuka nodded. "Tomorrow's just a half-day
of classes, and then there's no school at all. You and he won't
have to worry about any of this then."

Akane snorted. "For a day, anyway. Then Monday rolls around,
and the same old thing starts all over again." Then, thinking
ahead to the training she'd be doing with Genma in less than an
hour, Akane forcibly reminded herself that it wasn't true, things
didn't always stay the same forever. She didn't have to put up with
tired old worn-out circumstances that should've gone away of their
own accord long ago. Things were frustrating and troublesome right
now, both at Furinkan and outside of it, but she wasn't going to
stand it forever.

Bidding a quick goodbye to her friends, Akane hurried through the
courtyard over to the pigtailed boy. "So nothing happened during
your last class of the day, Ranma?"

At another time Ranma might have been annoyed at the question,
insulted at the implication that he needed Akane's help to meet
the daily challenges of life. However, given what actually had
happened in the interval between Akane leaving for her club and
the final class of the day starting… "Eh, nothing much,"
he said as he left his pose against the wall and turned to head
through the gate, making certain to have his back to Akane as he
spoke a carefully-edited version of the truth. "Some of the
members of the falconry club stopped by again, to beg me about usin'
my cursed form to help them stomp all their competition."

"Oh, honestly," Akane muttered. "Why can't those
guys just give it up and decide to play fair? Just tell them next
time to chip in all their allowances and send one of them
to Jusenkyo, if they want an intelligent falcon so much!"

Ranma blinked. "Hey… that's actually a pretty good idea!
Thanks, Akane!" Maybe it would even work. It would sure be
better than having the four prettiest girls in the club trying to
get his help by making him offers more blatant than Kodachi ever
had. 'Jeez, at least the Black Petunia wants me for the long
haul, and she's got the excuse of being a Kuno. I'd've rather had
her crash the party this afternoon instead of what really
happened.' It was the first time he'd felt true, deep regret
that Akane had joined the flower arrangement club. Had she still
been in the classroom with him, those other girls would have kept
their distance.

Of course, the same was true for Ukyo. His oldest friend had been
absent from class today, and Ranma had already decided to pay her
a visit and see how she was feeling, as soon as Akane disappeared
into the dojo for her afternoon training. 'Hope Ucchan's not
too sick. Heck, I could tell her most of what happened today, just
editing out the worst stuff, and let her take care of warning off
those chicks from the falconry club.' He knew better than to
give any of those details to Akane, but Ucchan was a lot better
at not blaming him for stuff that wasn't his fault. As long as he
edited out the worst of it, his oldest friend ought to save all
her righteous anger for the appropriate target and give him nothing
but free okonomiyaki and sympathy.

However, as it turned out, he wasn't going to have to wait that
long before seeing her. As Ranma and Akane passed through the gate
of Furinkan, they caught sight of a rather odd spectacle. Despite
the cloudless state of the sky above, there was a figure a little
ways down the sidewalk heading toward the school while garbed in
the most complete set of rain gear Ranma had ever seen. Galoshes,
rubber gloves, a hooded raincoat that reached the person's ankles
(and which bulged oddly to the back, as if hiding a large, long,
flat object), a snorkel mask covering the face, and to top it all
off an umbrella twice the diameter of Ryoga's. It was that fact,
plus the other's slim build, that made Ranma dismiss the possibility
that this really was the Lost Boy. True, he'd never seen Ryoga go
to quite this extreme to avoid a dousing, but it didn't seem too
out of character.

It wasn't Ryoga, but someone even more familiar. "Ranchan,
thank goodness it's you!" The voice was distorted a bit by
the various rubber layers, but it was clearly recognizable as Ukyo's.
The distress with which she'd spoken was equally obvious.

"Ucchan?" he queried. "What the heck? Why're you
dressed like that?"

"Are you all right, Ukyo?" Akane asked, following hard
on his heels. She hoped so. Bizarre behavior by any of their close
acquaintances was never a good sign.

"I… I don't know… Ranma honey, I need you to tell
me everything you know about Jusenkyo curses."

Ranma blinked. "Huh? Jusenkyo…?" An awful, nameless
suspicion beginning to gnaw at the back of his mind, he said, "Why
are you askin'? The way you're dressed… it's almost like you're
worried—"

"Why do you think?!" Ukyo snapped, interrupting him.
"You think I'm just dolled up like this for my health?!"
Then, with a half-hysterical laugh, the chef qualified, "Wait,
that actually does describe it pretty well, I guess. Ever since
I was walking to school this morning, and that," here followed
a long string of words that had Ranma blanching, while Akane winced
and took a few steps backward, "Amazon dropped a bucket
full of water on me. Except normal water wouldn't have shrunk me
down and left me swallowed up inside my own uniform."

"Shampoo did… she did…?" This was Akane.
Ranma couldn't quite bring himself to the point of speech yet.

"Oh, yeah." Ukyo laughed bitterly. "One minute I'm
walking toward class, carefree as ever. The next I'm getting my
unexpected shower, then I'm tangled up in the dark, no clue what
happened and fighting tooth and claw to get out. Then the world's
lifting up and tumbling over — that would be Shampoo picking
up the clothes and fishing me out of them — and then she's
got me by the scruff of the neck, holding me up to stare her in
the eyes, just far enough away that I can't reach out and scratch
her, telling me 'Now you know what it feel like.' Not that I did,
not that I had even begun to understand yet." Ukyo stopped,
took a few deep, ragged breaths, then continued, "The world
blurred and started jumping around again then, which was her running
from where she'd ambushed me over to that big fancy outdoor-bath
place on Kushimoto Street. She pitched me and my clothes in there
and high-tailed it away." Or at least Ukyo's pride hoped Shampoo
had beat a hurried retreat, rather than sauntering casually away.
It had been at least an hour before her shock had abated enough
to even begin to think about anything other than the immediate present.

"She gave you a Jusenkyo curse?" Akane whispered, horrified.
"I-I thought she'd used up the last of the Falcon water…
Ranma! You told me she'd used up the last of the Falcon water, you
jerk!!"

Any attempt Ranma might have made at a reply was cut off by an
even more bitter peal of laughter from Ukyo. "Falcon? Yeah,
right. Guess again, Sugar. Which curse do you think she'd give me,
which one would be the absolute worst for me and Ranma honey? Which
curse did she originally have?" the chef clarified.

'She gave Ucchan a cat curse….' Curiously enough,
the only thing Ranma felt was despair. He suspected the anger would
follow soon enough, but for now the impact of this new development
had robbed him of all the strength he would need to feel such an
emotion. 'No matter what I do or how hard I try, worse and worse
junk just keeps on happening… How could I have let this happen?
But how could I have avoided it?'

He didn't know the answer to either question. All he could think,
all he could speak, was a near-whispered "Ucchan… I'm
sorry… I'm so sorry…."

"Never mind the apologies, Ranchan, it's damn well not your
fault! Just tell me, what is it about Jusenkyo curses I'm missing
here? Once I finished freaking out from seeing my reflection and
changed back in a hot-water pool, I tried every single cold-water
one there and didn't trigger the curse again. Does chlorine block
it or something?"

This latest communication hit him with at least as much of an impact
as her previous revelation of Shampoo's actions. However, instead
of adding to his despair or sparking it into anger, this one felt
like it smashed a hole in the pit of his gut and let all that horror
and sorrow start draining out. "You… couldn't…
change… back…?" he whispered, first in blankness,
then in the barest beginning of hope.

For someone who'd been raised since birth to prefer actions over
words, Ranma's next move was entirely sensible. Ukyo blinked as
her fiancé dashed away, crossing the street into the yard
of a nearby house. Then she let out a shriek of surprise as he reappeared
just as quickly, blurring across the street with a hose in one hand,
and with the other proceeded to whisk her right out of the rain
gear before spraying her from head to toe.

This action had several immediate results. For one, it revealed
Ukyo had been wearing her Furinkan uniform under the rain gear.
It was slightly the worse for wear, due to her initial panicky clawing
attempts to escape. The pants were still in perfect condition, but
the top was frayed in a couple of fortunately-not-too-indiscreet
places. And her usual chest binding was gone entirely, consigned
to a garbage bin after she discovered how severely she'd torn it
during her struggle with the enveloping fabric.

The actual dousing had no mystical effect of any kind on the chef.
Certainly she didn't shrink down into a cute little bundle of fur
and claws and horror (at least, from Ranma's perspective), leaving
him to breathe a huge sigh of relief and not even notice that he
was looking straight at a girl in a soaking wet top.

"PERVERT!!" Akane remedied that situation by smashing
her lecherous excuse for a fiancé to the ground. Naturally
enough, this ripped the hose from his grasp, causing water to be
sent flying in numerous directions. Akane became slightly damp and
even more ticked off, whereas Ranma found his birth species washed
away.

"Jeez, will you give it a rest?!" Ukyo snarled, tempted
to give the other girl a good hard slap. She had spent the whole
day at the baths, trying more and more frantically to figure out
the particulars of the curse Shampoo had so casually saddled her
with, but now she was seriously regretting not leaving earlier to
meet Ranma for the final, and more importantly Akane-free class
of the day. "That wasn't him trying anything perverted, Akane!
He just wanted to make sure I wasn't going to turn into a cat!"
The worst of her anger expended, her worry rose up again to dominance.
"Ranma honey, did you really know that would happen?"
It seemed likely, as surely her fiancé wouldn't have so cavalierly
risked exposing himself to his worst fear.

Ranma nodded, giving an encouraging cheep. Truth be told, he didn't
absolutely know for sure, but he had a suspicion strong enough that
he'd have backed it in a bet with Nabiki.

Akane had made the connection too. "Oh, that's right! That
must be it." Relief was far and away her greatest emotion,
but the youngest Tendo still managed to speak with the faintest
hint of cattiness as she continued, "Guess Ranma never told
you about that time, right Ukyo? His and Shampoo's first date, I
mean."

"Akane, I am not in the mood to—" With some effort,
Ukyo swallowed her first choice of words, "—jack
around here. If you know what's going on, please tell me."

"It's got to be Instant Maoniichuan," Akane replied.
Off to the side, Ranma nodded his head in agreement. "That's
a powdered form of Jusenkyo water. If you mix it into normal water,
then anything you splash will change into whatever type of spring
the powder was for. But it's a one-use-only thing; as soon as you
transform again, the Instant Curse is gone." She supposed it
was the same whether you changed back with hot water, or had a preexisting
true curse and got hit again with normal cold water.

"You… you mean… I'm not…" There was
a tiny part of Ukyo that had dared to hope this ever since her trembling
immersion into the first cold-water pool so many hours ago. That
part was suddenly growing by leaps and bounds. "I'm really
not cursed? Not for real?"

"I'm sure of it," Akane said. "Believe me, as much
time as I've spent around Ranma and Mr. Saotome, I can tell you
one thing. With a real Jusenkyo curse, any cold water will change
you."

Ukyo held silent for a few moments, then heaved a long, ragged
sigh. "Thank goodness for that." Another period of silence,
as the flood of relief crested and began to ebb down from its all-consuming
high mark. Once it had receded enough, the chef found herself with
the beginnings of curious uncertainty. "But then… if
it was just a one-use thing… why'd she do it?"

Akane made a wordless noise of disgust. "You have to ask?
She wanted to mess with your head, of course! Or… no, wait…"
the youngest Tendo's eyes widened as a rather worse picture dawned
on her. "It's a warning, Ukyo. It's got to be!"

"No, that's not it! Ukyo, listen to me!" Akane declared.
"Last week, Ranma asked Shampoo to get some Nannichuan sent
from China, for Ryoga and Mr. Saotome. The next day she called and
said Cologne said it was all right, and she'd written the letter
back home asking them to send it."

Ukyo blinked. "And this applies how?"

"Don't you get it? If they're sending Nannichuan, real
Nannichuan instead of the Instant stuff she used to trick Ranma
that one time, they can send real Drowned Cat water as well!"
The words tumbled out of Akane's mouth, surging as if on the waves
of the sea of creeping horror she felt. "This is Shampoo's
warning of what she's gonna do to you, to us, if she doesn't
get what she wants!"

The chef bit her lip, feeling worry begin to erode the relief she
was feeling. She didn't want to believe that, but didn't think it
safe to dismiss the idea outright either. "Akane, are you sure?"

"Of course I'm sure! This is exactly the kind of thing that
worthless bitch would do!" Far stronger language than
Akane almost ever used, but remembering poor Ryoga and how Shampoo
had heartlessly cursed him just so he wouldn't have an advantage
over Ranma, the rage and contempt and fear rose up like a seething
pool of bile. She also remembered that Shampoo had only agreed to
reverse Ryoga's curse after Ranma had asked her to, a meeting he
hadn't allowed Akane to be present for… and that the Amazon
hadn't yet specified what she wanted as payment…

"I don't know," Ukyo continued. She was aware that she
was trying to convince herself of something she really, really wanted
to believe. All the same, she couldn't find a flaw in the logic
of what she was saying. "Why wouldn't she have done that a
long time ago if she was going to do it? For that matter, why give
a warning at all? And if she did decide to warn us, why not actually
tell me that's what she meant? Her Japanese still sucks, but it's
good enough to get something like that across."

"I don't know!" Akane's tone made it clear enough that
she didn't think that was any sort of substantial problem with her
hypothesis. "She's a Chinese Amazon. Who knows what
she's really thinking… other than 'obstacles is for killing',
of course."

'Considering that you're still alive and she could put you down
in three seconds flat…' Ukyo mused, more dubious than
ever. And of course there was one thing she couldn't afford to bring
up now; unlike Akane, Ranma had told her the truth about how Ryoga
had acquired his new curse. 'Sure, Shampoo replaced Bacon-boy's
old one without his agreeing to it, but that was only because Ranchan
more or less asked her to. It's not like either Akane or I have
to worry about that.' Her train of thought was broken as an
irate older woman walked up, gave her the evil eye, switched off
the still-gushing hose, and dragged it back into her yard. The slam
of the gate behind her expressed her emotions as well or better
than the words she opted not to say to members of the infamous Nerima
Wrecking Crew.

The action served to remind Ukyo that, out-of-sight-out-of-mind
notwithstanding, it wasn't just her and Akane at this little meeting.
"My place is closer than yours. Let's go back there and talk
this out some more. Ranchan, I'll get your stuff… Ranchan?"
she repeated, looking down to the last known location of her feathered
fiancé. His clothes were still there, but Ranma was conspicuous
only by his absence.

Akane, acting on basic instinct, swiveled to face the general direction
of the Cat Café. Scanning the skies, she quickly spotted
a number of black specks, any one of which could be the missing
boy. For a very long moment she teetered on the verge of racing
toward the restaurant herself on an intercept course. But then,
remembering that Genma was waiting for her, and more importantly
so was the training that would let her put the Amazon in her place
once and for all, she sighed and turned away. "I've got to
go, Ukyo. I'll see you in class tomorrow, and we can talk more about
this then." She gathered up Ranma's clothes and schoolbag,
and walked away toward home. After a few uncertain seconds staring
at Akane's retreating back, Ukyo turned and began walking away as
well.

"Where are you going?" Akane called sharply a minute
later, having checked backward over her shoulder. Ukyo stopped,
turned, and stared blankly back at her. Akane jerked her head, indicating
a different path than the one the chef was taking. "The Cat
Café is that way. If you're looking for Ranma, don't
you think you should start there?"

Akane whipped the door open with a bang. Striding into the dojo
and seizing eye contact with Genma, she barked out a question he
wasn't exactly prepared for. "How quickly is this training
going to give me good results?"

Genma hesitated, buying time to observe her and consider his words
before replying. Akane's face was flushed with the clear evidence
of fury, but it almost seemed like the tremble in her lips and her
clenched fists was from some other emotion. "Only you can answer
that, Akane," he said slowly. "What you get out of the
training depends on how much you put into it. Did something happen
today that makes it more important to you?"

"You could say that," she snarled. "Ukyo wasn't
at school today, but she caught up with me and Ranma as we were
walking home. And it turned out that Shampoo was the reason she
wasn't there!"

"And…?" her sensei prompted.

"And that… that… that Amazon ambushed her
on her own way to school! You remember that time Ranma thought he
was getting a real cure for dating her? Remember how that powder
let you and him get in our koi pond and not change?" Akane
waited for Genma to grimace and nod, then continued, "Well,
she used something like that on Ukyo this morning. Except it was
the Instant Spring of Drowned Cat!"

Genma blinked, but didn't show any more emotion than puzzlement.
"So what? It's not like a one-use thing really matters,"
he grumbled.

"Well, I think what it was really saying matters a lot,"
Akane retorted bitterly. "We've still got about two weeks before
the real Jusenkyo water Shampoo ordered for you and Ryoga gets here.
I need to know if that's enough time for me to be able to settle
things with her once and for all. Because it's obvious what she
really meant by doing this to Ukyo."

A bit of exasperation entering Genma's voice, he asked, "And
what is that, oh wise teacher?"

Well, it wasn't like she hadn't known where Ranma got his brains
from. "What kind of question is that?! It's a warning to give
up now, because when the real Nannichuan water is coming, so is
the real stuff from her old spring!" Akane glared at Genma
as strongly as he could, but her expression was not enough in and
of itself to mask the fear she was feeling. Only the elder Saotome's
shock kept him from noticing that. "So tell me, Mr. Saotome.
Are you going to be able to help me finish things before it comes
to that?"

"I… I don't…" Genma's mouth gaped feebly
open and closed for a few silent seconds, before he managed to pull
himself together. "Where's Ranma? This is more important than
your training, Akane!"

"He flew straight on to the Cat Café," Akane shot
back. "And what do you mean, more important than my training?!
I came back here instead of going after Ranma because you're supposed
to help me finally be able to take Shampoo down for good!"

"Yes, of course, but it's not going to happen in two weeks!"
Genma barked back. "Come on, we need to get Soun and go after
that foolish boy of mine!"

"Hold it." The words were spoken in tones of cold, careful
control, but were no less intense for that. Nabiki stepped into
the dojo doorway, left conveniently open by her sister's earlier
entry. "This is no time for running off without a plan."

"Nabiki, what are you even doing here?" Akane demanded.
"And why should we wait?!"

"I noticed your mood almost the second you came in the front
door," the middle Tendo replied. "You hurried through
the house so fast I didn't get a chance to stop you and ask what
was wrong. So I followed you out here and overheard this little
tragedy in three acts." Her eyes narrowed. "Or at least,
that's what it looks like it's shaping up to be. Mr. Saotome, I
want you to take several deep breaths, count to twenty in Sanskrit,
and calm down."

"What? I don't know Sanskrit," Genma objected, knocked
off-balance even through his previous emotional state by the bizarre
nature of the request.

"Well, that just means you'll have a little longer to recover
yourself, right?" Nabiki asked with a smirk.

"Young lady, this is no time to be standing around talking!"
the elder Saotome growled. "My boy's heading straight into
the lion's den, his real fiancée just let him go off alone,
and you're only making things worse! Get out of the doorway or I'll
make my own!"

All traces of humor vanished from Nabiki's mien as she did just
that: stepped forward out of the doorway and strode briskly toward
Genma. "Now you listen to me and you listen good," she
grated, summoning forth every ounce of authority she could muster,
and silently thanking Happosai for the conditioning he'd given his
disciples. Genma was already taking his first step backward before
she'd taken her fourth toward him. "Mr. Saotome, you are a
good martial artist, and an excellent teacher. The results you got
with Ranma are more than enough evidence of that. But I'd like you
to take this moment, think long and hard, and tell me this: when
was the last time you planned something that didn't have to do with
martial arts and it worked out like you were thinking?

"Oh, yes, there's one other caveat," she continued. "Something
that didn't involve getting Ranma to clean up a mess you'd made."
Nabiki finished her request and allowed herself one quick knife-edged
smile. It didn't relieve any of the pressure she was putting on
the elder Saotome, though.

"No, but standing around and talking and thinking are about
ten billion times better," her sister riposted, not taking
her eyes away from her current target.

"Urrrgh! Fine!" Akane shouted once it became clear to
her that Genma wasn't going to say anything. "I'll go get Dad
and we can talk about this some more. I didn't really want to face
Shampoo anyway until it was for real."

"Hold it!" the middle Tendo barked before her sister
could take even one step. "Let's leave Daddy out of this. You
know how emotional he gets, Akane. How do you think he'd react to
the thought that his precious little girl might be in danger of
getting her own Jusenkyo curse before long? Why, I'm amazed he's
agreed to let you train to seriously fight Shampoo at all!"
She said this last in a tone thick with meaning, keeping a careful
eye on Genma. It had been a shot in the dark, one backed up by nothing
but her instincts, and it was thus all the more satisfying to see
the part-time panda flinch. 'I thought so. Daddy at least doesn't
want this training to be used for what is supposedly its very purpose.
Now I wonder, Mr. Saotome… just who are you fooling? Daddy?
Akane? Yourself? Or all of the above?'

Akane, meanwhile, had only paid attention to Nabiki's question.
She had to agree that her sister had a point, sarcastic and cynical
though she might be. Nonetheless, she felt a little uneasy about
complying with Nabiki's request. Perhaps it was residual guilt at
how she'd gone straight over Soun's head to arrange the training
with Genma and how her father hadn't said so much as a cross word
to her about it afterward, but she wasn't comfortable now with leaving
him out again just for her convenience. "But even so…"
she started.

"I said leave it, Akane!" Nabiki snapped. An instant
later she realized the mistake. She'd dedicated too much of her
attention to processing the input she'd just gained from Genma's
reaction, and not enough to handling her sister. Akane could
be forced into things, but it invariably hurt her. Far better to
lead her gently and subtly along, even if the success rate wasn't
quite as high.

"Oh, really. When did you get so bossy, Nabiki?" her
little sister snapped right back.

"When did you get so impulsive?" Nabiki countered lightly,
all traces of impatience and ill temper now vanished. "Sorry
about that, it really didn't come out like I meant it to. But think
it through, little sister — it's only going to hurt Daddy
to hear something like that. Who in this family is that
going to help? Though I will say it might help somebody," she
continued, allowing some anger, directed away from her sister, to
seep back into her voice. "If Ranma comes winging his way back
home today and gets met at the door by a Demon Head to end all Demon
Heads, it's not going to make the Amazon alternative look any less
appealing to him."

"…Maybe you're right," Akane conceded, convinced
by that argument as she hadn't been by Nabiki's earlier reasoning.

"I usually am," Nabiki said, buffing her nails against
her shirt and inspecting them with hooded gaze.

"Bah. I still haven't heard anything to keep me here!"
This was Genma, more or less recovered from the vision of Nabiki-as-authority-figure.

"Then let me ask a few questions. This first one's for you,
Mr. Saotome, since you're the martial arts expert here." Nabiki
paused just long enough for her flattery, her carefree tone, and
her innocent expression to begin disarming Genma. "Suppose
you, Akane, and Daddy were to hurry off to the Cat Café and
catch Ranma there. Suppose Shampoo had spun him some kind of song-and-dance
about her really having a good, innocent reason for doing what she
did, and now the two of them are enjoying a bowl of ramen that might
or might not have a few… shall we say, exotic ingredients
added. Suppose the three of you bust into the place and demand for
Ranma to leave and for Shampoo to finally pull her claws out of
him once and for all. What do you suppose happens then?"

Genma blinked, wishing there were more time to think things through.
Rapid intelligent response in noncombat areas just wasn't his forte.
"What does that have to do with me being a martial arts expert?"

"I mean, what happens when the inevitable brawl starts up
and Cologne joins into the fray?" Nabiki was still using the
carefree tone and innocent expression, though they were more a cruelty
than a reassurance now. "Even if you did get Ranma on your
side, do you think it would matter? The only one in our corner who
can really match her is Happosai."

"DON'T SAY HIS NAME!" Under the current circumstances,
this response came straight from Genma's brainstem without needing
to wait on his higher order functions. After the horror of his and
Soun's recent training trip, the last thing they wanted was to summon
the Master back.

Nabiki glared, inflated her lungs, and yelled, "Happosai!
Happosai! Happosai! Happosai! HAPPOSAI!!" She took quite
a bit of pleasure in Genma's panicking response, though she would
have been happier if what the old man feared really had happened.
"Mr. Saotome, this is exactly what I'm talking about when I
say you need to think before you act," she rebuked. "If
you're really worried about the Amazons finally getting a serious
claim on Ranma, don't you think you ought to be hoping the one player
we have that can stand up to Cologne makes it back sometime soon?"

Genma took a minute to process this. Then, the strain of the paradox
proving too much, his eyes rolled up in the back of his head and
he fainted dead away.

"Oh, honestly," Akane muttered. "Grandfather Happosai
may be a pain in the neck, but I don't see why they're so afraid
of him."

"That's my point exactly, little sister."

"Huh? What is?" Akane asked, confused by Nabiki's words
and seizing on another potential distraction. If they weren't going
to head to the Cat Café and Ranma, she would at least have
liked to spend the time until he came back training as hard as possible.
Maybe she wasn't going to be able to beat Shampoo before the real
water got here in another couple of weeks, but at least practicing
would keep her thoughts away from anxiety over it. "What are
you talking about?"

"It's something that doesn't make sense because we don't have
all the facts. Just like another matter I could name," Nabiki
answered. "So now I'm going to ask you some more things about
this business with Ukyo, Shampoo, and the Instant Maoniichuan."

"I don't really know anything else," Akane pointed out.
"We'll have to wait for Ranma to get home and ask him."
Her expression darkened. "And try to figure out what's true
in what he tells us, what's his BS, and what's lies that Shampoo
fed him and he didn't see through."

"I didn't mean those kinds of questions," Nabiki returned,
suppressing a sigh. "Here's the first one: if Shampoo is really
planning to use real Maoniichuan on you or Ukyo, why would she tip
her hand ahead of time with the Instant stuff?"

Akane stared blankly back at her. "You're asking me that too?
So did Ukyo. Is it really that hard to figure out?"

"Humor me, little sister."

"It's a warning! She's telling us what's going to happen for
real if we don't give up and let her have everything her way!"

"So now you're an expert on how Shampoo thinks, are you?"
Nabiki asked lightly. That contrasted enough to an admission Akane
had made to Ukyo not an hour before that it brought the youngest
Tendo up short. "Akane, here's some food for thought: people
do not act randomly. Even crazy people who do crazy things, do them
because those things make sense in their own fractured view of the
world. So, next question: Does Shampoo have any reason to believe
you or Ukyo would back off due to intimidation? Or has she seen
with her own two eyes that it doesn't work at all?"

Shampoo had certainly tried those very tactics against her in the
early days, Akane remembered. But Nabiki was right; it hadn't worked
and the Amazon hadn't kept repeating the failed tactic. At least
not seriously. "Um…."

"And here's another one. Have you forgotten that by all our
evidence Shampoo needs to clear it through Cologne first when she
gets real Jusenkyo water shipped out here?"

"What does that have to do with anything?!"

"Think it through, Akane." This time Nabiki failed to
suppress her sigh. "Shampoo might be impulsive enough to think
dropping a permanent curse, especially that one, on you or
Ukyo might make her own chances better. But Cologne is too smart
not to see how Ranma would really react. Count on it, Akane —
she'd put the executive veto on it."

"Ranma didn't seem too terribly upset with Shampoo for what
she did to Ryoga!" Akane made the protest, but even to her
own ears it was weak. Ranma hadn't been happy about it either, he
had promised to share his waterproof soap with Ryoga, and he'd even
arranged for Shampoo to undo what she did.

Nabiki shrugged. "Since he honestly thinks he himself is better
off with a Falcon curse than with none at all, that had to have
an impact on how much Ryoga getting one would bother him."

'Okay, okay, she's right. This is another one of those times
when I shouldn't be thinking about Ranma or blaming him for stuff.
It's all Shampoo's fault and that's what I need to be focusing on.'
Even if it was scarier to contemplate going against someone who
wouldn't hold back from hurting her. Aloud, she said, "So what
are you really saying here, Nabiki? I should just kick back and
relax? There's no danger after all?" Akane's tone and expression
conveyed the meaning that her words by themselves didn't. Chances
were less than zero that she would agree to such propositions.

"No. I'm saying that the biggest danger here is if you or
somebody else," she glanced disparagingly at the now-snoring
Genma, "go blundering off without any idea of what's really
going on. And yes, you should kick back and relax, at least for
the next few days. Give me time to do what I do best, collect the
facts and put them together."

"Nabiki… I don't know…." She knew full well
that her sister was cleverer than she was, and especially that Nabiki's
mind worked more quickly. That didn't mean Akane was willing to
acquiesce completely now, just on her middle sister's say-so.

"Please, Akane." It was time for a tactic she very rarely
used in dealing with Akane, or anyone else for that matter. Nabiki
braced herself, and let her mask slip just a little, showing true
emotions and speaking with utter honesty as she said, "I sincerely
believe that if you light into Ranma when he gets home, demanding
to know what really happened with him at the Cat Café and
yelling at him and calling him names if he says Shampoo had her
reasons, that you'll be playing right into Cologne's hands. Please
give me time to do what I can first."

"…Okay," Akane agreed. It would be hard, but surely
she could afford that much time if this mattered so much to her
sister. "Five days, Nabiki. Until then I'll listen to what
Ranma has to tell me if he volunteers anything, but I won't press
him. And I definitely won't go after Shampoo yet."

"No charge for family," Akane said with a half-hearted
smile. "Is there anything else you wanted, big sister?"

"Nope, I'm good."

"Okay. I need to get back to training then."

Nabiki nodded absently, barely hearing her younger sister's comment.
'That went easier than I expected,' she congratulated herself
as she allowed the tension to drain out of her. 'I've always
been able to nudge Akane into something when it's really important,
but it's almost never been that easy to get her to actually see
reason. Could it be… could it be she's finally starting to
grow up? To move past this phase of just seeing things how she wants
to? Could my baby sister finally be learning to let go of the old,
stupid patterns that have chained her down and put her whole family
at risk before?'

"HIII-YA!" Akane's strike smashed the stack of bricks
to so much rubble.

At top speed he could have covered the distance to his ultimate
destination in minutes, no matter which form he wore. Instead, Ranma
chose to fly slowly and lazily along, buying the time he would need
for contemplation. He spent the first few minutes of the flight
climbing higher in a long looping circle, while keeping one eye
focused on the ground below. He breathed one sigh of relief when
Akane walked away toward home, another when Ukyo turned to do the
same, and then a third after his oldest friend ignored what had
sure looked to him like an order to head toward the Cat Café
instead of her own restaurant. If either of the girls had chosen
to rush off and confront Shampoo, Ranma would have poured on the
speed to get there first, get Shampoo transformed, and fly away
with her to talk this over without the kind of nuclear meltdown
a confrontation between the fiancées might have created.

He was thankful that hadn't been necessary. He wanted more time
to think things through before facing Shampoo about this morning's
antics. And so Ranma flew in ever-widening circles, finally satisfying
himself that neither Akane nor Ukyo was going to change her mind
about heading to the Amazon stronghold. 'I swear, it looked like
Akane was more eager to go for Shampoo's throat than Ucchan was,'
he thought. After considering that for a few minutes, though,
it no longer seemed so strange. 'But I guess I can understand
that. Ucchan had to still be off-balance. What with something like
that happening to her, or rather what she thought happened, and
then spending the whole day panicking and trying to figure out what
was really going on… and then getting good news like that…
Yeah, it's not that surprising that she'd want to take some time
to settle down before making her reply.' In fact it was kind
of like the Saotome Secret Technique — Run, Think, Attack.
He just hoped Ukyo's inevitable counterattack didn't make things
worse. Ranma knew he would be tempted to go way too far if someone
ever hit him with Maonichuan, whether it was Instant or not.

Of course, something like that wasn't as bad for his oldest friend
as it would be for him. Nonetheless, Ranma still felt quite a bit
of irritation as he considered Shampoo's action. 'Where the heck
does she think she gets off doing that anyway? Shampoo knows what
it's like to get changed against her will. She oughta have enough
sympathy not to push it onto other people! At least, not Ucchan,'
he amended. He wouldn't have liked it, but at least he could have
understood it a lot better if she'd targeted Akane for this morning's
dousing. His shorthaired fiancée had used Shampoo's old curse
against her far more times than he wanted to think about. But Ukyo
had never done so, to the best of his knowledge.

Thinking of these things was causing his levels of anger and irritation
to rise. With a mental grunt, Ranma turned his thoughts to the other
side of the coin, from Ukyo to Akane. 'Man, she sure didn't hold
back from thinking the worst,' he thought. 'Made up her mind
right away, too, set it in stone quicker than Ryoga could blow a
hole in the ground. Who knows? Maybe she was right about some of
it, like thinking Shampoo did this to mess with Ucchan's head. But
it ain't like she's got any kind of right to just decide that and
treat it like some kind of holy, self-evident truth or something.'
Just like he had done, just like he had regretted, when Shampoo
had told him how long the magic of the Falcon water would really
have lasted. 'Don't want to make that mistake again.'

These thoughts weren't as effective at reducing his anger as the
earlier ones had been at stoking it, but they were enough to convince
Ranma that he had better not just rush off riding the surge of his
emotions. Maybe he would have to get tough with Shampoo over this
— or as tough as he could manage, anyway — but he was
going to listen to her first and act after he'd heard her side of
the story. At the very least, if Shampoo cheerfully related something
that proved Akane's first guess was more or less right, it ought
to be more effective to chew her out using the ammunition the Amazon
herself had provided.

With this thought, he altered the curve of his flight, turning
toward the Cat Café. He covered the remaining distance quickly,
concentrating on what he was going to say, and managing for once
to realize ahead of time that if he wasn't careful he was going
to end up getting a hot shower and giving Shampoo a free show. That
realization and the plans to avoid it were distracting enough to
keep one particularly unwelcome thought buried in the back of his
mind.

After all, he didn't even want to dream that Akane's second "inspiration"
regarding Shampoo's motives might be correct.

Finding Shampoo turned out to be easier than he'd expected. There
was no need to actually enter the building; Shampoo herself was
on top of the roof, moving through a slow, gentle, controlled kata.
It wasn't a pattern Ranma had seen before, but he didn't have much
time for analysis. As he descended the wind picked up around him,
not with anywhere near the strength of the fiercest gusts he'd ridden
in the past, but with oddly unpredictable cross-breezes that took
much more concentration than usual to navigate. He was mildly proud
that he still managed a perfectly-controlled landing ten feet in
front of Shampoo. He gave a loud squawk to attract her attention,
though the Amazon's kata was already gliding to a halt in response
to his arrival.

"Airen? What you do here?" Shampoo asked once she'd come
to a stop. She sounded oddly winded for someone who'd been doing
such a low-impact exercise. Ranma wondered briefly if she'd been
using it to cool down after a more strenuous workout.

Not that the question was important, compared to the one she had
asked. Of course, he couldn't exactly give her the response she'd
requested. Cocking his head to one side, he gave her the best reproving
look he could manage, as if to say 'How am I supposed to answer
that now? Hurry up and change too, and get rid of the language barrier.'

"Oh, right, you no can answer. Here, let Shampoo fix."
The Amazon repeated the trick she'd performed a month ago when all
this had started, pulling from nowhere two kettles and a small stove,
and setting one of the former on top of the latter to heat.

Ranma skipped forward, cheeping negatively and shaking his head.
Shampoo gave him a blank stare, which morphed into a smile of mingled
surprise and happiness as he gestured emphatically toward the kettle,
then toward her. "You want to fly again? Okay, is good!"
She didn't quite resist the temptation to slip out of her tunic
and pants before using the unheated kettle to trigger her change,
amused to no end by the way her transformed husband's eyes still
managed to bulge so noticeably at the sight. "~Hey, it's better
than getting my clothes all wet,~" she said as she fluffed
the water out of her feathers.

'Uh huh. The same clothes she was wearing for practice, that
she'd already been sweating in. Right.' Pushing those thoughts,
and images, out of his mind, Ranma replied, "~Listen, Shampoo.
I need to talk to you about something.~"

"~About what?~" Why was he using that tone?

"~About Ukyo,~" Ranma said, frowning as best he could.

Shampoo's expression curved to match, and she grumbled, "~So
she told you what I did? Did she tell you all of it, Ranma?~"

"~Huh? All of it? What do you mean?~"

"~I mean, did she bother to tell you that I didn't just leave
her to find hot water as best she could, but carried her to a place
where she could change back without any trouble? Even without any
embarrassment?~" In truth, Shampoo hadn't much cared about
that last one. She'd only been concerned that she wouldn't be putting
her husband's oldest friend in any true physical danger, and the
bathing gardens had been the nearest and easiest method of ensuring
that. But then again, Shampoo reminded herself, she hadn't had
to carry Ukyo's clothes along with her and leave them for the chef.
It was fair enough to point out how her actions had been suited
to spare Ukyo's feelings, even if it hadn't technically been much
of a concern.

"~Yeah, she did say that.~" It was another reason Ranma
hadn't been comfortable with letting his natural irritation at the
attack on Ucchan get out of hand.

Shampoo blinked. "~Then… what's the problem?~"

"~What do you mean, 'What's the problem'? Just cause you could
have done stuff a lot worse than you did doesn't make what you did
do all right!~"

"~If you thought that was my reason, then Ukyo obviously
didn't tell you everything,~" Shampoo snapped back.
"~I told her why I did this. You of all people would surely
agree with it. Guess that's why she kept quiet and just made me
out to be in the wrong.~"

Ranma cocked his head to the side, pondering that reply. He didn't
think Ucchan would have deliberately left out something like that.
Probably Shampoo had said her piece while the chef had been too
shell-shocked to hear it. "~So why did you do it?~"

"~So that she would know what it feels like,~" Shampoo
said, kicking a hole in the theory Ranma had just finished forming.
Before he could say anything else, she was continuing. "~She
needed to know what it's like to actually lose your body, to have
your humanity washed away without anything you can say or do about
it. She deserves to know exactly how it feels to get turned into
something small and weak and fragile.~"

"~Needs? Deserves? How do you figure that?~" Ranma demanded.

"~Because of how she won our last fight, that's how! It should
have been a clean victory for me, I had her on the ropes fair and
square! She ran out on the fight, left her stupid spatula behind
even, and when I followed after her she caught me right in the face
with a blast from a hose!~"

Ranma blinked. "~Oh.~" It was all he could find breath
or strength to say.

Shampoo, by sharp contrast, was only picking up speed. "~I
can understand it if you're surprised, Ranma. I sure was. After
all, she never used my old curse against me, right? Not like stupid
Akane. Ukyo wasn't as strong as me, but she always fought fairly
and with honor. And I respected that about her, respected that she
wouldn't go for the cheap, easy win. And it was all a damn lie!
This time she told me to my face that the only reason she'd held
back from doing that was because of how bad it was for you to be
around a cat. And she said flat out that since that wasn't a problem
anymore, from now on she was going to use this little tactic anytime
she felt like it!~"

The Amazon paused to take a few deep breaths and regain some semblance
of calmness. "~That's why I did what I did. I gave her a chance
to see for herself what it was like, and I'm also giving her a chance
to do the right thing and take back what she said about using my
curse to win any fight she wants. If she doesn't, if she keeps on
stooping that low, well, I ordered a whole crate full of Instant
Drowned Cat Water, not just one packet. Next time maybe I'll let
her find out for herself how much trouble it can be to find hot
water on your own!~" 'And if she still doesn't learn her
lesson, we'll just have to take it from there….'

Ranma took his own deep breath, and said, "~There won't be
a next time.~" He realized a second later that he'd said that
a little too forcefully for something that ultimately wasn't his
to command. He didn't have the right to simply declare that Ukyo
would never try this trick again after he asked her not to, even
if he believed that would be true. He amended, "~At least,
I hope not. I'll talk to Ucchan, Shampoo. I'll spell all that stuff
out for her and ask her not to do it again.~" He paused, then
said, "And, uh, about Akane….~"

"~Don't worry, Ranma.~" She was all too aware of what
he was about to ask. Back before all this started, when she and
Cologne had been discussing the idea of changing her curse, the
Matriarch had finally managed to get it through her head just how
traumatic it really was for her husband when she latched onto him
in cat form. "~I wouldn't do that to Akane. Not if you were
anywhere nearby, that is. No, I thought of something better for
her,~" the Amazon continued, killing Ranma's sense of relief
as quickly as it had been birthed.

"~And that would be?~" he asked, reminding himself to
hear her out before making any decisions or jumping to any conclusions.

"~A different crate of Instant powders. One that would fit
her even better,~" Shampoo said, her tone making Ranma think
that if she had currently had a mouth instead of a beak, it would
have curved in a wicked grin. "~Spring of Drowned Sloth.~"

He blinked. "~Spring of Drowned Sloth? If you've got that,
why didn't you use it in the first place with Ucchan? That woulda
been better than that horrible, evil… well, you know.~"

"~No, I don't know,~" Shampoo countered. "~I couldn't
exactly have carried Ukyo to the bathing gardens if I'd used the
other powder. Sloths may be slow, but they're not that slow.
I would have had to leave her to fend for herself.~"

"~Yeah, but still…~"

"~But still nothing! She might have been a little late for
her first class, but if I'd used the sloth curse how much of the
day do you think she would have missed?~"

Ranma stared back at her. "~What're you talking about? She
spent the whole day at the bath place, trying to figure out why
she wasn't turning back into a cat with more cold water!~"

She blinked. "~What?~"

"~What do you mean, 'what'? She thought it was a real curse,
and she spent all that time trying to find out how it really did
work, since it wasn't doing what she thought it would!~"

"~Well, that wasn't what I expected. But it's not like there's
any reason for me to feel guilty about this!~" Shampoo said
guiltily. "~If it really did hit her that hard, that just means
she'll have a better idea of what it's really like for you and me!~"

"~Yeah, well, for future reference, Shampoo… you really
need to make yourself clearer. Your Japanese may be a lot better
than any of us are at Mandarin, but Ucchan sure didn't get the point
you were trying to make.~" Part of him still felt unhappy about
how much more his friend had suffered than Shampoo had meant, but
considering how many of his own problems and mistakes he'd finally
begun facing and trying to fix, he wasn't about to come down too
hard on the Amazon for making a misstep when she attempted the same
thing. If even Ranma Saotome couldn't get everything right the first
time around, what right did he have to expect it from other people?

"~Fine. Please tell her just what I meant,~" Shampoo
requested. "~And Akane too. Especially Akane,~"
she said with a glower. "~I can't even remember how many times
she used my old curse against me. Make sure she understands that
the time of no consequences is over for good.~"

"~Okay, I'll tell her. But give me a chance to, okay? Don't
go ambushing her and giving her a bath unless she uses your curse
against you first. Let me have a chance to talk with her about not
doing that any more.~"

Shampoo rolled her eyes. "~She already tried once, picked
a fight and tried to win it like that, but she wasn't good enough
to pull it off. You think she'll listen to you?~"

"~I… I don't know. I hope so. Because you're right;
doing something like that is going too far to win.~" Even in
the darkest moments when he'd been most desperate to figure out
a way to defeat Ryoga's Shi Shi Hokodan, that was one tactic he'd
never seriously considered using. Now that he had his own nonhuman
curse, this was something he was even more proud of. "~I can
sure say that, with everything that's been going on at Furinkan
lately.~"

"~Going on at Furinkan?~" Shampoo echoed. "~Is this
about what Akane told me a couple of weeks ago, about Stupid Stick
Boy managing to trigger your curse while the whole school was watching?~"

"~Oh, yeah,~" Ranma grumbled. "~I'm not regretting
making the switch, but I sure do wish the jerks at school wouldn't
see it as such a golden opportunity.~" Shampoo made a concerned,
inquisitive, "go on" noise, which was more than enough
encouragement for him to do just that. "~I've had girls splash
me a few times, acting like it was an accident, and of course they
just so happen to have hot water right there to fix the 'mistake'.~"

"~And how many free shows have you given out like that, dear?~"
Shampoo asked, her eyes narrowing dangerously.

"~That'd be none, I'm proud to say,~" Ranma retorted,
leaving out the fact that this wasn't entirely his doing. The first
few times it had happened it had caught him totally off-guard, but
each time the girl in question had been just as unprepared, in a
different way, as he was. None had waited for him to get clear of
his shirt before unleashing the "apology" and hot water.He suspected they thought the reversed transformation would
tear him right out of the garments, rather than having him expand
to fill them as decently and normally as he had before the cold
water.

"~Congratulations, Ranma. Maybe you're getting better about
avoiding attacks from girls after all,~" Shampoo said, deliberately
not looking over at her remaining kettle, still sitting innocently
atop a low-burning stove.

"~Then of course there's the jerks from the falconry club.
They want me to help them rip their competition to itty bitty pieces,
and even after I've turned 'em down over and over they keep on begging
and pleading with me to join the airborne half of the club.~"
'Better not go into more detail than that, though. Having Ucchan
get onto those girls for this afternoon… that's one thing.
But I think I'd just as soon not set Shampoo onto them.' And
if it led to the guys in the club giving up on him and approaching
Shampoo instead once they learned she had a Falcon curse too…
that felt even less appealing, somehow.

"~You mean, they keep asking and keep asking and keep on asking
for you to do what they want, even after you've told them 'no' a
thousand times?~" Shampoo nodded. "~I can see how that
would be a pain.~" 'That reminds me, I ought to check with
Great-Grandmother, find out of there's any word of Mousse coming
back anytime soon.'

"And let's not forget the so-called martial artists in the
class below me, who think using my curse would be a great way to
get a victory over someone who could normally flatten them with
one hand tied behind his back. Not that any of them have managed
it yet,~" Ranma said, preening ever so slightly. "~But
it's still a big fat waste of my time, dealing with challenges from
these putzes who'd otherwise know better than to take me on.~"
He knew they were trying to outlast his stash of waterproof soap.
It was slightly worrisome that he'd used up most of the one bar
that he had for his own use, but according to Akane the bars she'd
had Nabiki order ought to arrive any day now.

"~You say this is happening with the younger martial artists?
What about Bokken-Boy Kuno?~"

Ranma heaved an aggravated sigh. "~Things are both better
and worse there than I expected. I seriously do not know where he
gets his delusions, but he figures this is all part and parcel of
me being a big, bad, dark, evil sorcerer. And he also apparently
thinks it's some kind of sign that my powers are wearing out, or
turning against me, or whatever. I think it's got something to do
with him seeing me in the, uh, the… intheCatFistonetime,~"
he screeched through the words as fast as possible, "~and now
knowing that I turn into a bird with cold water. I think he thinks
that if he just splashes me enough, I'll move down another rank
on the scale or something.~"

"~Well, I am,~" Ranma said. "~Not about the 'not
attacking when I'm a falcon' part, but the 'getting his stupid ninja
peons to hide all over the school and try to catch me off-guard
all the time'.~" At least it made for good awareness and response
training, but as far as Ranma was concerned even that silver lining
had already reached 'too much of a good thing' status. He couldn't
dodge them all the time, and he sure couldn't stay protected all
the time with waterproof soap. He'd even had to default on one challenge
match when one particularly sneaky ninja had caught him in the shower
just before he could apply his layer of protection.

"~Hmmm… you know, husband, this might be a good time
to finally quit wasting your time at that stupid school,~"
Shampoo said oh-so-innocently. "~I know it's given you some
good challenges before, but I really think you've outgrown it now.~"

"~That's not an option,~" Ranma stated. Before Shampoo
could argue further, he elaborated. "~Yeah, the stuff they
go on and on about in class isn't much fun, but I've still got to
put up with it. My mom would be disappointed if I just ditched school.~"

"~Oh,~" Shampoo said, deflating noticeably. That put
paid to pretty much any argument she might otherwise have made.

Both teens were silent for a few moments, thinking over the various
things that had been said. Eventually, coming to a decision, Shampoo
broke the silence. "~Ranma… hearing all this, about everything
that's going on at Furinkan… I've decided something. There's
something I need to show you. Come over here.~"

Confused, but seeing no reason not to comply, Ranma fluttered across
most of the three feet that had separated him from the Amazon. Incidentally,
this left the kettle and stove a little too far behind him to be
visible in his peripheral vision. "~What is it?~" He interrupted
himself with a screech of surprise, a cry that morphed midway into
a more human exclamation as hot water cascaded down over both him
and Shampoo.

Shampoo smirked, then giggled, then laughed out loud as she watched
Ranma freeze, recover, and scramble desperately to find his clothes.
This time, of course, they were several miles away. "Here,
silly," she said, taking pity on him and holding out her own
pants.

Ranma grabbed them and slipped them on, thankful that this particular
outfit had been a relatively loose one Shampoo had chosen for maximum
mobility in her training, not one of the skin-tight ensembles she'd
occasionally worn when she was the one looking for him. The pants
were a little tight on him, and they were more than a little pink,
but they were a good bit better than some of the things the Tendo
sisters had forced him into in the past. They would do for the short
amount of time it would take him to find a source of cold water.
"Was there something you wanted to say?" he asked Shampoo,
his voice heavy with sarcasm, and only shaking a little at the sight
of the Amazon clad in just the remaining half of her outfit. At
least the top was barely long enough to leave her R- rather than
X-rated. "Or did ya just want to see?"

"Was both," the lavender-haired girl said with a completely
unrepentant grin. "Shampoo get what she want to see, now is
Ranma turn. Please pass Shampoo a kettle."

Ranma did as requested, locating and picking up the nearest empty
kettle. It had come to rest a few inches behind him, and he wondered
just how it had been induced to leave its previous perch on top
of the stove. 'Maybe the old ghoul snuck up behind me and threw
it when she knew Shampoo was ready?' There was no sign of Cologne
to be seen now, but that didn't mean much. Pushing the thought aside,
he tossed the object to Shampoo, who caught it in her left hand.

In her right she suddenly held the last item she'd had with her
in storage, a single bonbori. "Watch close now," she said
with a wink. Then, dropping all hints of playfulness in the interest
of absolute focus, she tossed the kettle into the air and swung
the mace. The air hummed with the force of the blow, which sent
the now-badly-dented container soaring up, up, and away.

It was only impressive because the weapon missed its target by
a good three inches.

Ranma blinked, rubbed his eyes, and mentally replayed the scene.
Sure, he'd seen Kuno do significant damage from air pressure alone,
but that had been the slowly-mounting result of a storm of thrusting
strikes, not a single attack. And a swing at that! No, this went
far beyond anything he'd seen the Blue Thunder pull off.

"Is secret of advanced style Great-Grandmother teaching Shampoo,"
the Amazon explained. "Special techniques work with element
of air, lets you do things that make Hiryu Shoten Ha look like move
for beginner." Although Cologne had warned her that it would
take a long time to work her way up to those pinnacles of the Air
style.

"Well, that's kinda cool, I guess," Ranma said, putting
up as carefree and unconcerned a façade as he could manage. "Not
like a weapons technique like that is really my thing, though."

Shampoo stuck out her tongue, furrowed her brow, and managed to
levitate the bonbori two inches above her palm on a cushion of solid
air. "So who say is just weapons? Ranma should be thankful,"
she said as she let the technique lapse. "Thankful Shampoo
choose to show it this way. First plan was to wait until I had learn
enough, then use it to kick you butt. Get you to join in training
with Shampoo that way."

She nodded. "Great-Grandmother say this style very, very good
for curse Shampoo have now," the Amazon explained. "Say
once I far enough along, these techniques let me fight and win no
problem even in falcon body. Same thing must be true for Ranma too,
right?" Noting her husband's stunned-but-intrigued expression,
the gaping jaw contrasting with the gleam in his eyes, Shampoo gave
another big smile and continued. "Is good news with what is
happen at school, yes?"

"I… yeah, that might be true…." Certainly
it was an appealing thought. He wasn't forgetting the things he'd
told his father a few days ago about what was most important right
now in his study of the Art, but all that stuff only applied to
his birth body. A set of special techniques that he could use to
fight even in his cursed form — that was a trump card worth
quite a lot these days.

A bit of caution reared its ugly head then, as Ranma envisioned
some of the responses he'd likely face back at the Tendo home if
he waltzed back there and announced he was going to be spending
as much time training with Shampoo as Akane was with his father.
"But…."

Shampoo quickly interjected, before he could take that any farther.
"Remember, sooner you start, sooner stupid boys and girls at
school not cause any more problem. And," she hesitated just
one moment longer, delaying the decision for one last second, then
said, "and remember we never talk about how Ranma repay me
for get more Jusenkyo water for Ryoga and father? This will cover
it. Ranma train with Shampoo, learn with Shampoo and help with my
own learning, I will call it even." Though she did hate the
thought of losing all the dates that debt could have bought her.

That was more than enough for him. Ranma's face set like flint.
His fists clenched with determination. His eyes shone with strength
and resolve. His borrowed pink pants gleamed in the sunlight. "When
can we start?"

"I still don't see why we had to wait so long to start this,"
Ranma grumbled.

Cologne gave him a flat stare. "It's been less than twenty-four
hours, Son-in-law." And so it had. It was Saturday now, and
the half-day of class at Furinkan had ended an hour ago. Ranma and
Akane had headed home as usual, Akane to retire to the dojo, Ranma
to tell everyone else he was going out to fly. And so he had, although
the flight this time had only been as far as the bathhouse where
Shampoo had washed his girl curse away. The repairs had been completed
and the place was open for business once more, but Ranma still figured
it was a good idea to keep one change of clothes there. After quickly
exchanging feathers for cloth, he'd headed to the roof of the Cat
Café to keep the appointment he'd made yesterday. That was
where he stood now, with Shampoo about seven feet away on his left
and Cologne roughly an equal distance straight ahead. Several crates
were placed just behind the Matriarch, one large one with a stack
of three smaller ones beside it.

"School today was okay?" This was the younger Amazon.
Judging from Ranma's mood, she thought it probably hadn't been too
bad. That grumble had sounded awfully familiar to her, carrying
tones she'd heard in her own voice in the past when she'd pressed
her great-grandmother about including more advanced techniques in
her training. She could certainly sympathize with how eager he must
be now to get started.

That didn't mean she wasn't going to enjoy watching him suffer
through the first part of the training, of course.

"Yeah, it was fine. Only a few of Kuno's ninjas to waste my
time. And speaking of wasting time…." Ranma said significantly.

Cologne had let him have the earlier remark for free. This time,
though, she slung her staff in a move that had it boomeranging through
the air to bonk her reluctant son-in-law's overly hard head, then
return to her grasp. "It was hardly wasting time," she
snapped at him. "What do you suppose would have happened if
we had started right then and there, right after Shampoo led you
down into the restaurant to ask and I said I'd teach you as well?
Akane at least had to have believed that when you left her yesterday
afternoon it was to seek out Shampoo. And if you hadn't come back
from that meeting until many hours had passed? Do you want
them jumping on your back right from the very beginning?"

"Well, no," Ranma was forced to admit, glaring as he
rubbed his head. Truth be told, the hit had barely stung, but the
gesture in and of itself had been plenty irritating — not
the least of which because Cologne had moved so fast he wouldn't
have been able to block even if he'd been expecting the attack.
"And I'll admit I didn't tell them what I was really going
to do this afternoon. But I'm not so sure I feel like sneaking along
for weeks, or months, or however long this takes, hiding it from
them the whole time. As a matter of fact, I'm sure I don't want
to."

"Good," Cologne returned, giving him a toothy grin. "Sounds
like you're giving this more thought than you would have in the
past. So tell me, Son-in-law, what do you think is the best
thing to do?"

"I'm not sure yet. Can't make that call without knowing how
much time we're talking about," Ranma explained. "Like,
how long will each training session last, how many different techniques
are there for me to learn, are you gonna use the same kinda methods
you did for the Chestnut Fist, all that stuff. But if I had to give
an answer right off the bat, I'd say I'd like to keep this between
us until I've learned at least one decently impressive move. That
way when I let it slip to Pop and the Tendos what I'm really doing
and they all start screaming their heads off, I can whip out the
Wind Slash to give 'em a good example of just why it's worth it
to let me keep up the training."

"My, my, I am impressed. I'd say that's a very good approach
to take. A very well thought-out plan," Cologne said generously.
It was nice to know she hadn't wasted the hours she'd spent cooking
up enough illusions to prevent anyone watching from realizing Ranma
was here. "Just to warn you, it will take you a little while
longer than you might be expecting. The first training exercise
in this style is just that — a training exercise. It doesn't
directly teach any of the techniques. Those come later. And for
the record, there's nothing in this arsenal called the Wind Slash."

Ranma shrugged. "Just made that up as something that sounded
like it fit."

"Well, if you manage to master this style to the point where
you're coming up with your own revisions, feel free to use it. Now
then." Cologne cleared her throat. "As much as I'm sure
you'd rather just jump right into the training, I want to take a
moment now to talk about the style and the things you'll be learning."

"Why's that?"

'Wonderful. Only one sentence in and already he's interrupting
me,' Cologne thought sourly. "Because although we'll be
starting with moves that are much less powerful than the Hiryu Shoten
Ha, we will end up with techniques that put it to shame. But this
goes beyond techniques and individual moves, sonny boy. You'll be
learning principles, basic foundational truths about chi and how
to align it with air… the single most important element in
almost any place a human is likely to go."

"Is power, Airen," Shampoo said solemnly. "Shampoo
was not kidding when I say if I had wait longer, learn more of style,
could have kick you butt with it."

"A-HEM!" Cologne gave her great-granddaughter the evil
eye. "If I could continue without more interruptions from either
of you…" Shampoo gave a sheepish grin. Ranma nodded,
unsure as to whether he should be thoughtful or annoyed at the lavender-haired
girl's message. "My great-granddaughter is correct, but she's
also understating things. At the highest level of mastery, the principles
of the Air style will allow you to disrupt a fully-fledged tornado."
Cologne paused just for a minute, then added, "Or cause one."

"Okay, I get you," Ranma said quietly. He and Genma had
seen one once, much closer than they would have liked, and so he
knew how much more powerful the real thing was than the imitation
he could pull off. He knew just what would happen to the neighborhood
if he unleashed something like that in one of his typical challenge
matches. If he'd thought the old ghoul might be implying that he'd
do something like that, he would have been much less polite in his
response.

That wasn't, couldn't be, what she had meant. It was a lesson that
he'd already learned, one the Matriarch must know anyone at his
level had already received, about respecting the extraordinary abilities
that his training gave him. If she didn't think he knew that already,
she wouldn't have taught him the Chestnut Fist, let alone the second
Amazon secret she'd revealed. "So where does this style start?
And is it gonna help or hurt me that I already know the Hiryu Shoten
Ha?" Judging from what she'd said, it couldn't be one of the
basics of the style.

"Neither. I can understand why you might think otherwise,
but the Hiryu Shoten Ha is actually classified as aura-based. The
effect happens because of your aura's contrast to that of the enemy
or enemies you lead into the spiral. And while it's true the effect
manifests itself in the air, that doesn't mean it's an Air technique
in the real sense of the word." Noting the subtle signs of
restlessness from her great-granddaughter, the twitching that wasn't
quite managing to make it all the way to an eager squirm, Cologne
decided to be generous. "Shampoo will explain why that is."

"For Air technique, Ranma must learn to do what Great-Grandmother
already say. To make his chi line up with the air around him, make
them work together. Is like you extend own self into the air, make
it do things directly because it is like part of you. That is heart
of Air style. Each new lesson is just how to take it further, how
to control more power at once for new effect, how to get same effect
without spend so much of own strength, how to balance energies to
bring off something you not know how to before."

Ranma considered that for a little while. It still felt really
odd to think that a move like the Hiryu Shoten Ha wasn't considered
part of the Air style, but from what Shampoo had described he could
kind of see the reasoning. When he performed that technique, almost
all his energy and concentration were focused inward, keeping his
soul like ice and executing the spiral. The attention that wasn't
tied up in those tasks was allocated to his opponent or opponents.
Whereas Shampoo's description sounded like he'd be extending himself
outward, making himself part of the air around him, or the air part
of him, or both at the same time. It was a big difference from just
projecting his own energy, be it confidence or cold.

"So…" he said slowly, after pausing long enough
to be sure that Cologne wasn't about to jump back into her narrative.
"If I learn enough of the style, would it actually let me fly?"

Shampoo gave him the strangest look he'd received all week. "Ranma
already know how to fly, remember?"

He rolled his eyes. "What I meant was, as a human.
Like, if something ever came up and I had absolutely no choice other
than getting rid of the falcon curse."

"The answer is yes and no," Cologne replied. "Yes,
you can fly, if by 'flight' you mean 'controlled passage through
the air'. The Chariot of the Storm technique will carry you as far
through the sky as you like, so long as you have strength and control
enough to maintain it. But the concentration required means it will
never be as enjoyable as what you have now. There's no substitute
for natural flight in a form designed for it."

'Well, I'll just have to hope Mom agrees with me when I tell
her all that stuff about how cool it is. Grabbing hold of the dream
ordinary guys can't even touch really ought to count towards being
a man among men,' Ranma thought, mentally crossing his fingers
while knocking on wood.

"And anyway Shampoo already tell you these secrets let you
fight and win even in falcon body against stupid fighters at Furinkan,"
the lavender-haired girl said. "Ranma should not be thinking
about giving body up to make that place easier. Would be better
to change schools if come to that." Although, if they really
were giving him that much of a hard time, maybe the best thing of
all would be for her to enroll at Furinkan to stand by her beloved's
side.

"Would you mind not jumpin' to conclusions, Shampoo?"
Ranma grumbled. "I get enough of that from Akane." Feeling
guilty at the way the Amazon suddenly paled and looked stricken
to the core, he added in a milder tone, "I wasn't thinking
about giving it up. I was thinking about what could happen if I
had no choice but to give it up."

Judging from Shampoo's expression, she didn't exactly appreciate
the distinction but was unwilling to push her luck further. Cologne
regained control of the conversation. "In any case, before
we actually begin your training I will have Shampoo demonstrate
the techniques she has been learning. But before that, Ranma, I
would like you to give your word." She vaulted to the top of
her staff and bounced forward five feet, to better look him in the
eye. "I know how observant you are when it comes to the Art,
how much detail you can notice and retain from simply watching something
done once. You won't catch all of what you're seeing, but you will
doubtless get some of it. I need you to promise that you won't try
to train for these on your own. Not until you have finished the
first exercise to my satisfaction, that is. Once you've accomplished
that, practicing on your own will be safe enough."

"It goes back to what my great-granddaughter already told
you about the heart and soul of the Air style. The primary training
exercise is what teaches you to align your chi with the air around
you. You need that as your foundation before you even begin to think
seriously about replicating the effects Shampoo will demonstrate.
Your own question about the Hiryu Shoten Ha should be enough of
a clue," the Matriarch explained. "The truth is, you can
create similar or even nearly-identical effects to the beginning
techniques in other ways. And if you did learn, oh, let's say to
imitate the Wind Strike through chi projection alone, rather than
truly combining your chi with the air, you would end up with a useful
skill… and it would be much harder to learn the things that
cannot be faked like that."

"Got it. I ain't gonna promise not to think about it,
but I won't try to learn any of these moves Shampoo's gonna show
me until you say I'm ready."

"Is what I already show you, Ranma," Shampoo said. "First
real move of Air style is called Buzzing Fist." She held out
her right arm, fingers curled loosely into a fist. "Concentrate
air very very tight around own hand and make vibrate." The
hum sounded again that Ranma had heard two times before, once when
her bonbori hadn't made contact with the kettle, once when the weapon
had floated over her hand. Now that he was looking for such detail,
he was able to make out a rippling distortion effect around her
hand, similar in appearance to heat waves but not identical. "Forms
a shield around hand, extends reach a little, gives extra force
to punch and also protects when you hit or block. And the buzzing
is also good to blast through loose stuff like sand, or shake away
water before it can splash you." The Amazon snorted. "Have
to be careful with that last one, though, have to control the direction
of how the air moves. Jusenkyo mean if you just let it go random,
for sure some will splash back on you."

"And yes, there will be a training exercise where I send cold
water your way and you have to deflect it with this skill,"
Cologne added.

'Great, more chances for me to give Shampoo a few more free
shows,' Ranma thought. 'Well, that training won't happen
until after I've finished whatever the first exercise is, and it
also sounds like it won't happen until I get the basic training
for the Buzzing Fist. That means I can train on my own to nail down
that particular trick to it first.' Out loud he said, "So
what's the next move? Is that the very first thing you showed me,
with the bonbori? Adaptin' these same principles to work with a
weapon instead of your own body?"

"Is exactly right!" Shampoo said enthusiastically. "Ranma,
you such good warrior, so quick to learn! Each time you do something
like this it only make Shampoo happier to be you wife!"

"If we could move from pillow talk back to martial arts…"
Cologne said as dryly as the desert sands, speaking before Ranma
could make any kind of response.

"Oh, okay, right." Shampoo produced her scimitar. A similar
buzz and ripple emanated from it. Ranma noted that the ripple extended
down over the hand with which Shampoo held the weapon, though it
was just barely visible there. "Similar technique have similar
name. This is called Buzzing Strike. Is second technique Shampoo
learn, but Great-Grandmother tell me that might not be same for
you. To focus like this mean you has to have weapon you is very
good with, very comfortable with. Even then is harder than just
using own hand as focus."

"So if it's harder to do, why do it? Just for the lesson that
learning it teaches? I mean, is there any advantage ta having a
weapons variation instead of just the basic one?" Ranma wanted
to know. "Other than the added range, I guess."

Shampoo nodded, suppressing an evil grin. 'Stupid Akane could
tell you that one.' "Yes. Is one very good advantage. Great-Grandmother,
you ready with paper cranes?"

"Yes." The Matriarch bounced to the top of the largest
wooden crate, and used the tip of her staff to pop the lid off the
topmost box in the adjacent stack of smaller ones. Inside the crate
were a multitude of crisp, white origami cranes. Cologne reversed
her grip on the staff, bringing the knobby end down into the box
and then pulling it out, sending a blizzard of paper birds fluttering
toward Shampoo.

With a loud cry, Shampoo brought the sword around in a glittering
arc. The closest of the birds was still a good three feet away,
much too far removed for the rippling around the sword to affect
it. However, as the sword reached the point of its arc closest to
the blizzard of birds, the buzzing sound escalated to a roar, the
ripple disappeared, and a massive gust of wind lifted the flock
and sent them careening away into the wilds of Nerima.

"Is controlled loss of control," Shampoo said, doing
her best to repeat the terms Cologne had used when explaining this
to her, and wishing idly that she could perform the techniques for
Ranma while they were in human form, then have the two switch to
falcons to get rid of the stupid language barrier. And of course
the switches back to human would be a nice added bonus… Forcibly
reminding herself that Cologne had counseled her before this session
not to come on too strong to Ranma during it, and feeling a bit
of uneasiness that she might already have crossed that line, Shampoo
continued, "With good hard steel as focus rather than flesh
of own body, is safe to do. Let all the power you built up in shield
of air blast out all at once, to give big gust of wind in direction
Ranma choose. Enough to pick up opponent, especially if they too
clumsy and slow and weak to be ready, and throw them back into a
wall."

"Or into a koi pond," Ranma mused, thinking ahead to
the time when he'd need to break the news of this training to his
father. "So what's the name of this variation?"

"It doesn't actually have a name," Cologne said. "There
are numerous techniques in this style to generate winds in one way
or another. Since this one is basically a loss of control in a true
technique, it isn't dignified with its own name."

"Name of move is Wind Slash," Shampoo said with a grin,
pushing her luck once more. She was rewarded when Ranma chuckled
and returned the smile.

Cologne smiled as well, though it was a sight less inherently appealing
than her youngest descendant's expression. "Anyway, moving
right along… Shampoo, demonstrate the technique Ranma really
meant when he came up with that idea for a name."

Shampoo blinked, wondering whether her great-grandmother thought
that instruction had been at all clear. Shrugging it off, she returned
the sword to storage and proceeded to the next technique in the
style. Hopefully that was what the Matriarch had meant. "Next
one is called Wind Strike." She paused, wracking her brain
for the right words in Japanese. "Is the first one that lets
you control the air currents directly." She gave him a wink.
"Like, maybe to pick up small kettle of hot water and dump
it over two falcons."

'Well, that' s one mystery solved,' he reflected.

Meanwhile, Shampoo had asked for another batch of cranes. Cologne
had somehow shifted the empty crate from the top of the stack to
the bottom while neither of them was looking, and now had the new
topmost crate open. This time, instead of flinging them all toward
Shampoo at once, Cologne sent the birds winging along one at a time,
with about five seconds as an interlude between each.

Shampoo's brow furrowed in intense concentration. Ranma watched
as the neat line that was the birds' journey was broken, each crane
departing in a different direction once it hit a certain point in
the air. He watched, bemused, as the cranes settled into a sloppy
but still recognizable kanji scrawl for 'Ranma'. "Not bad,
not bad at all," he said to her, not even really trying to
keep the 'yes, I'm impressed' note out of his tone.

"Although she just spent most of the rest of her reserves
in that bit of grandstanding," Cologne added. That little touch
had not been something they discussed when planning out Ranma's
introductory session. "Still, perhaps it's just as well. There
is one other technique Shampoo could have demonstrated for you,
but she has only begun to make good progress on it and it is the
most energy-intensive one I've taught her yet."

"So what is it, Shampoo?" Ranma asked.

"Name is Wind Ward," she answered. "Build on Wind
Strike, except you not control or direct air currents. Is wide-area
effect, causes strong, unpredictable gusts of wind that have lots
of chi in them. Will mess up almost any long-range attack."
It made for a particularly pleasing mental picture, too… Ranma
learning this with her help, and utterly defeating Mousse's typical
attacks once the half-blind boy finally managed to escape Jusenkyo's
grasp and return to Nerima without a curse. It had to happen sooner
or later, Shampoo knew, but the later the better. And the farther
along she and Ranma were able to get, the closer they were able
to come without one of the usual most persistent interferences around
to cause trouble, the better.

"How would that stand up to a Moko Takabisha?" Ranma
wanted to know.

Cologne answered the question that her youngest descendent didn't
have anywhere near enough experience to handle. "At full strength,
it would disrupt the blast utterly, and even weaken a typical Perfect
Shi Shi Hokodan to near-uselessness."

"Cool," Ranma pronounced. "So that's the stuff Shampoo's
been working on so far? How many more techniques are there?"

"Why don't we let that wait for another time," Cologne
responded. Then, yielding to the temptation to mess with her son-in-law's
head, she added, "I will say that you've seen me use two of
them before. See if you can think back over the past during the
next few days and figure it out for yourself."

Ranma put on a smirk. "That almost sounds like a challenge,
Granny."

Cologne returned a bloodcurdling smile. "You want a challenge,
Son-in-law? I challenge you to complete the first step of the training
faster than anyone has ever done before." She kept quiet for
now that that record had been set by Shampoo, as far as she knew;
Cologne's theory that her youngest descendant's cursed form might
help her learn the basics had proven correct beyond her wildest
dreams. In all likelihood Ranma's own experience with a falcon body
would serve him just as well or better, but if Cologne actually
told him that Shampoo had been the one to set the record he would
probably figure out ahead of time that flight experience was the
key. No need to make it even easier on the boy than it already would
be.

Yes, even after nearly three centuries she remembered taking two
months to master the training that Shampoo had completed in a week
and a day. But she wasn't bitter. Not at all.

"How fast is that?" Ranma asked.

"I'll tell you once you've mastered the exercise."

"Great-Grandmother, that not fair."

"Neither is life, Shampoo." Cologne had not yet told
Shampoo how extraordinary her time to complete the first step had
been. Time enough for that later, after Ranma did even better. The
Matriarch judged that it would be better overall for Shampoo to
learn that yes, she was second to Ranma in this area, but that was
second place out of all Amazons, rather than knowing from
the start she held the gold medal and then getting displaced from
her throne.

Ranma made a disgruntled sound in the back of his throat. "Well,
okay, then what that really boils down to is you're challenging
me to do the best I can. You got it, old… girl." He might
not be fast enough to stop the Matriarch if she was really determined,
but at least he could catch sight of her fingers tightening on the
wood of her staff!

"Glad to hear it, Son-in-law." Cologne hopped from the
large crate to the topmost smaller one, and flipped the lid of her
previous perch. "The gear you will need is in here."

Ranma trotted over, finding that he wasn't really surprised at
the sight before him. A coiled-up leather harness with lots of wooden
bars, gears, and pulleys rested within, sitting on top of what Ranma
would be willing to bet were sacks of balsa wood strips. "So
that was what she was doing," he murmured.

"Yes, Ranma have already see Shampoo work on this part of
training," the younger Amazon confirmed as she moved up behind
him. "The method is called Flight of the Plucked Chicken."
She didn't even try to keep a straight face as she said it. It hadn't
been particularly amusing while she was struggling with that
cursed harness and its accouterments, but now that she had passed
that trial and got to watch someone else suffer, Shampoo was able
to see the humor.

"The heck?!" Ranma said. "How's…" His
voice trailed off as he stopped and really thought about it, casting
his mind back to what he'd watched Shampoo doing that one time,
putting it together with what the Amazons had said was the heart
of this style, what the training would teach him to do. "Okay,"
he said after a minute or two of silent thought. "I think I
see where this is going. You put on the harness… and attach
the balsa wood strips, or should I say 'feathers'… and jump
through the air as hard as you can. The idea is to get where you're
going without having the wind rip any of the feathers off the outfit.
And the suit's built like it is so that you can rearrange it after
each jump, so that you're not just figuring out the one perfect
way to twist your body to keep the feathers intact. The only thing
that'll work every time is doing what you said — getting your
chi to align with the air itself."

"Very well reasoned, sonny boy. You are correct." 'So
help me, if he masters this in just three days, I'll… I'll…'
She didn't quite know what she'd do. Perhaps she would wait until
he finally accepted Shampoo as his wife, then slip one of the more
powerful Amazon fertility potions into her great-granddaughter's
tea. The thought of Ranma dealing with four or five children, each
of whom was as gifted — and as much of a handful — as
he was… there was quite a bit of satisfaction in that.

Ranma paused in his roof-hopping and checked the angle of the sun.
Yes, he still ought to have time for this visit. He'd just finished
with three hours of training, but today was Sunday and Genma's training
session with Akane would last at least another two hours. Akane
might later hear from Kasumi that he had been gone for such a large
stretch of the day and she might ask him where he'd been, but at
least he didn't have to worry about her busting in on him when he
was talking things over with Ukyo.

Conversation, civil persuasion, and other such social skills were
an area Ranma knew full well to be one of his weakest, but even
he could see ahead of time that this discussion with Ukyo would
be a lot less trouble without Akane present. Personally he would
have preferred to let it wait a little longer, think a bit more
about what he was going to say, but he supposed Shampoo had had
a point twenty minutes ago. Cologne had signaled that it was time
for both teens to end their training for the day, Shampoo because
her reserves were running on empty, Ranma because he'd worked his
way through ninety-five percent of the balsa wood feathers she had
prepared. Shampoo had been happy to shift from training to talking
with him, and he hadn't exactly minded the segue away from what
he had already mentally christened the Flight of the Stupid, Spastic,
Crippled, Diseased, Plucked Chicken. Although he hadn't exactly
been prepared for Shampoo to ask him whether he'd followed through
yet on what he'd said he would do, to ask Ukyo not to use her curse
against her again. After he'd admitted he hadn't, she had spent
the last of her chi in grabbing a bucket of water from somewhere
outside his field of vision and dumping it over the both of them,
and had then proceeded to give him an earful once the language barrier
was down.

'But, it could've been worse,' he allowed generously. 'She
could've been screeching stuff at me that wasn't basically right.
I knew for a fact that Ucchan didn't understand just why Shampoo
did what she did, and I'd figured out myself that she probably wasn't
going to take it lying down. I really shouldn't even have put it
off this long, to get with her and ask her to call a truce on using
people's Falcon curses against them.' A vision danced through
his head then of how that could apply to someone other than Shampoo,
how it already had once at Ucchan's Okonomiyaki. 'She prob'ly
wouldn't do that to me, though,' he thought. 'Not on purpose,
anyway.' He knew Ukyo cared, in fact he knew she cared deeply
enough that he wasn't entirely comfortable thinking about it, but
she had never been as ready, open, eager, and, ahem, uninhibited
as Shampoo in showing it.

'At least today Shampoo didn't manage to get the both of us
in a skin scene,' Ranma thought. 'Didn't even try, actually.
She was probably just too tired out from practice.' It was the
fourth time he'd run that thought back through his mind since beginning
this journey from Shampoo's restaurant to Ukyo's, and each time
he'd felt just a little more uneasy about it. Not because Shampoo
had shown that much restraint — but because he didn't feel
more than a tiny twinge of relief that she had.

"Am I actually getting used to that kind of stuff?" he
wondered, putting words to the thought as he came to a stop. Ucchan's
was just four blocks ahead, but he felt like he had better get this
resolved, or at least pushed out of his head, before seeing her.
"I always hate it when Akane calls me a pervert, but what else
would you call someone who's all casual about being around Shampoo
when she really gets going like that?" Not a very reassuring
thought… and it led straightaway into Ranma deliberately thinking
back to some of the times the Amazon had shown just how much she
was willing to give to him, with a clarity and focus that he usually
used in suppressing such thoughts. "Whoa, okay, guess
I don't have to worry about that after all," he muttered as
his pulse began to race.

It still left the question of why he wasn't more relieved that
today hadn't been a repeat performance. A little more thought suggested
an answer. "Guess I'm just getting less scared of that stuff
because there's been such a long string of it without Akane finding
out and going ballistic. That sure hasn't ever happened before."
On the whole, though, he thought it was a change he could get used
to. Get even more used to, anyway.

Giving a satisfied nod, and forcing out the lingering image of
Shampoo wearing a big smile and nothing else, he resumed his trek
toward Ucchan's.

He arrived at a good time, at least for the purpose of private
conversation. The lunch rush had ended, and Ucchan's was closed
to the general public for the next few hours. As Ranma jumped down
into the street and peered through the window, he saw Ukyo give
the grill a last loving wipe, then cover it up and toss the rag
aside. He took another two steps and knocked on the door.

"Hey, Ranchan!" Ukyo exclaimed a few seconds later, opening
the door and giving him a sunny smile. "Come in, come in! Would
you like some late lunch?"

Well, if she was offering then there was no way he was going to
feel guilty about making her get everything dirtied up again. Especially
not with his stomach rumbling its own answer to her offer; breakfast
had been a long time ago. "Yeah, that sounds great! Thanks!"

Ukyo fired up the grill, pulled out the various ingredients, and
quickly fixed him three of her best. She knew for a fact that a
serving of that size would only put a dent in Ranma's appetite,
not subdue it entirely, but for what she was about to ask him she
didn't want him stuffed to the gills with food. "Ranchan?"

"Mmwhaf?"

The chef giggled at the sight. He didn't scarf her food down nearly
as quickly as meals she'd seen him eat in the Tendo home, since
of course there were no overweight pandas here to try and steal
from his plate, but Ranchan still showed the infamous Saotome Table
Etiquette in other ways. "Are you free for about an hour?"

"Yeah, I can manage that," Ranma allowed, hoping that
he wasn't setting himself up for trouble. Oh well, if this was a
date he could at least count on Ucchan not to make it too frilly
and girly, and it should leave her in a good enough mood to go along
with what he would be asking her.

"Great!" Ukyo said enthusiastically. "I was gonna
go train in the vacant lot a couple of blocks over. It'd be a lot
more helpful, and a lot more fun too, if you'd be my sparring partner."

"Uh…" Now he was on the horns of a dilemma. Ranma's
brain sped up to maximum as he pondered the choices. On the one
hand, it didn't seem like such a good idea to ask her what he was
going to while they were already on the battlefield and she had
her mega-spatula right there in hand. Also this would be the first
time he'd even tried helping Ucchan with her training; there was
no inherent reason to think she'd take it as badly as Akane always
did, but then again there was no certainty she wouldn't.

Then again, if Ukyo did react badly to his request, it might actually
be safer to weather her reaction in the middle of a match. He could
just pretend it was a more intense sparring session than expected
from his oldest friend, and put all his effort into dodging and
blocking until her initial response ran down. He never quite knew
how to deal with an incoming angry female under normal circumstances,
but surely he could handle himself in the context of a challenge
under the Art!

Less than a second had passed as he pondered these options. "Sure,
Ucchan. I'll be glad to help you out," Ranma said.

"Thanks, Sugar, I really appreciate it." Ukyo quickly
put away the okonomiyaki ingredients, turned off the grill and gave
it a hasty rub-down, then grabbed her combat spatula and enough
miniatures to fill her bandoleer. The two of them left the restaurant
and headed down the street.

"So do you usually train this time on Sundays?" Ranma
asked as they reached the first intersection, keeping the conversation
to safe topics for now.

"Yes and no," Ukyo replied. "Basically I train when
I can, Ranchan. Between going to Furinkan and running my own restaurant,
it's pretty much impossible to just find time to train. I have to
make it, and even that's hard. Like right now, for instance,"
she continued. "Frankly, I'd rather be back at the restaurant
with you, fixing you more okonomiyaki and talking about life in
general and nothing in particular. But this is important too, so
I'm just glad you're there to help me out."

"Uh, if you're not really fired up about the idea of training,
why're you showing a battle aura?" It was just the barest flicker,
but Ranma could still sense it. It had become perceptible during
Ukyo's 'this is important too' line.

"Like I said, it's important." Ukyo grimaced, and subconsciously
began walking a little faster. "I went head-to-head with Shampoo
a little while back, and nearly got the crap beaten out of me for
my troubles. Not because she's so much better than me, just because
I made one stupid mistake that left me open. Don't want that happening
again."

"Whoa. You fought her? You almost got flattened?" Ranma
said in his best 'method actor' voice… which is to say, if
Ukyo's mind hadn't been focused on the past, she would have sensed
immediately that he was faking the queries. "How'd you get
out of it?"

The chef wasn't paying enough attention for his tone to register,
but she at least caught and comprehended the question. She held
silent for the rest of the current block, before admitting, "I
used her curse against her. Not something I'm really proud of, and
definitely not something I want to have to count on to save my butt."

"Especially when you consider how ticked off it made her."

"No joke…" Ukyo blinked and came to a dead stop,
only ten feet away from the entrance to their destination. Ranma
kept walking for a few steps before realizing he was leaving her
behind. He stopped as well, turned back to face her, and developed
a sweatdrop at the look of suspicion on his oldest friend's face.
"Ranma honey?" she asked. "That sounded a little
funny, somehow. Are you just talking about what she did to get me
back? Or is there some other reason you'd know for a fact
that Shampoo was really pissed at me?"

'Oh well, it's not like there was really gonna be a good way
to do this.' With that cheerful thought for encouragement, Ranma
braced himself. "Uh, no. I mean, yeah. I mean… Hey, you
said it yourself — you ain't proud of doing this. Gettin'
your own curse, just for a little bit, that shows you even more
how she felt. How it feels to have someone else snatch away all
your strength and skills and even your own human body. So…
I guess what I'm trying to say is…"

"Is that Shampoo told you to tell me to back the hell off?!"
Ukyo demanded, her fists clenched at her sides and her face like
a thundercloud.

"Well, yeah… I mean, no…" Ranma experienced
a rather curious phenomenon then. One corner of his mind somehow
managed to present to his greater consciousness a reasonably clear,
impartial view of just how pathetic he must look to an outside observer.
Slamming his eyes shut and drawing on every iota of determination
he could muster, he declared, "No! That's not how it is at
all! I volunteered to do it, that is, to ask you not to use
her curse against her again. You've seen the kind of crap those
jerks at Furinkan try to pull on me. I can tell you first-hand how
Shampoo musta felt when you did that, and it sucks! No way am I
just gonna sit still and say it's okay if it's happening to somebody
other than me!"

"So you're just gonna take her side then, and dump something
on me too?! I guess Shampoo's little payback hit harder at the time,
but this damn well hurts too, Ranma! And could you please at least
look at me?!"

"No, I can't," Ranma admitted in a tone containing notable
self-disgust. "I'll lose every bit of my cool and control if
I do. Hell, I can't even handle it when Kodachi starts fake-crying,
how am I supposed to deal with my oldest friend gettin' all choked
up for real?" He paused, gulped, and continued. "I ain't
trying to say you were wrong and Shampoo was right. She made a stupid
mistake too. When I talked to her I realized she honestly thought
she'd explained to you why she did what she did, she figured you'd
understand everything just from that little 'Now you know what it
feels like' line you told me an' Akane about.

"But that ain't the whole of it at all, Ucchan. It's like
I said already — once you really understand what it's like
to lose so much, to have somebody take so much away from you because
it makes it easier for them, once you know how it feels… then
you won't treat it like it's no big deal anymore. You won't think
it's a perfectly good way to win any fight you want," he said
quietly. "At least, I hope not. Shampoo said you'd said something
like that, but I figure that could've just been another one of those
deals where her Japanese didn't quite cut it."

Ukyo had forced herself to listen to all of that, though doing
so felt like Shampoo had regained her previous curse and was now
trying to claw her way out of the chef's gut. Maybe the things Ranma
was saying were justified, but that didn't make it feel any better
to hear her fiancé sticking up for the damnable Amazon at
Ukyo's own expense.

However, the flipside was also true — the pain she was feeling
didn't make Ranma's request any less reasonable and honorable. 'Honorable,
hah,' Ukyo thought bitterly. 'Ranma, sure, but Shampoo? HELL
no! But I don't think trying to make him see that right now is gonna
work too well. And anyway… anyway, I was feeling guilty
about what I did…' Such feelings were conspicuous by their
absence now, but Ukyo supposed they might well return after the
present fire in her belly had had a chance to die down. 'Choose
your battles carefully, and you can even turn a loss into something
that helps you to ultimate victory… at least, I really hope
so….'

Out loud, the chef sighed then said, "I guess I understand
where you're coming from, Ranchan. All right, tell Shampoo she's
got a truce, not a water war."

Ranma breathed his own sigh, one longer, louder, deeper, and far
more relieved than Ukyo's had been. "Will do. I'll make sure
she promises not to use any more of that Instant junk on you as
long as you don't nail her first. Sound good?" he asked, daring
to open his eyes.

"I'm not quite sure," Ukyo said, her own eyes narrowing.
Ranma gulped. "That answer brings me to my next question, Ranchan.
Exactly what happened day before yesterday? Is that even when you
talked to Shampoo about this, or was it sometime later?"

He frowned in puzzlement. "Yeah, it was then. What'd you think
I was doing, when I flew off after hearing everything you said to
me an' Akane? Of course I was gonna go confront Shampoo about it!"

"I wasn't sure," Ukyo countered. "But you know,
I kind of thought you might not want to go over there all by yourself,
especially since you weren't wearing any clothes at the time!"
Ranma flinched at the comeback, which wasn't very reassuring. "And
maybe you don't realize it, Sugar, but you don't exactly have a
great track record in standing up to girls. So no, I wasn't convinced
at all that you were going to the Cat Café. I thought you
might just be taking some time to fly and think things over, since
you've told me how much you like doing that."

"That was part of it," Ranma said quietly. "But
you oughta know me better than to think I'd just let something like
what you described slide entirely."

"And when did I say that? But for the record, Ranma, I almost
think I'd rather you let it slide than deal with it without including
me! What I thought… what I hoped that afternoon was
that you'd come by my place, turn back to human and grab the change
of clothes I'm keeping for you, and then we could go face Shampoo
about this together! I waited and waited, didn't even open the shop
until the dinner rush was crowding outside my doors staring in with
puppy-dog eyes, and I never even saw you!" Ukyo glared furiously
at him, her expression almost managing to mask the hints of tears
in her eyes. "So you flew directly on to her restaurant instead?
I guess you never said it outright, but back when you were asking
me about using my place as a safe spot to change back to human,
I sure didn't think you'd offered Shampoo the same kind of trust!"

Ranma couldn't find any words to answer that right away. It was
true that he hadn't made the same arrangement at the Cat Café
that he had with Ukyo and Dr. Tofu, and it was even true that Ukyo's
reason had been a big part of why. But hearing it spoken out loud
right now somehow felt wrong.

In any case, part of what she'd said was definitely wrong. "So
who says I had to change back at all?" he wanted to know.

"What the hell kind of stupid question is that?!" Ukyo
demanded. "What, you flew around her head in circles screeching
in Morse code? You scratched a bunch of kanji onto the wall with
your beak?!"

"Uh…" 'This would not be a good time to laugh,
even if I'd be doing it at my own stupid self.' "Did I
never mention one particular piece of this curse, Ucchan?"
he asked, resisting an urge to put his hand behind his head and
give a feeble, shamefaced grin. "It lets me understand Shampoo
or Ryoga when we're both in our Falcon forms. That's how come I
could fly straight to her place to talk to her about what she'd
done. I just had to get her to change too."

Ukyo stared back at him in shock. "You… you can…
the curse actually goes that far?"

"Yeah, it even lets her talk normally instead of that whole
'Japanese as a second language' thing."

The chef clenched her eyes shut for a moment, fighting off her
initial reaction to this news. 'It's really that much of a connection,
that much in common? This crap just keeps getting worse and worse!'

She took several deep breaths, struggling for composure and courage,
then said, "Well, guess that's pretty convenient. So you didn't
have to change at all when you went to talk to her about this? It
didn't matter at all that Akane had already carried your clothes
home?" She paused for a moment, long enough for Ranma to begin
looking extremely uncomfortable but not long enough for him to actually
figure out how to respond. "Let me ask you something…
just how much time have you been spending with Shampoo lately? You
sure didn't hesitate to commit to seeing her again after our little
talk."

Ranma shrugged. The gesture might have been more convincing if
he wasn't sweating like crazy. "Eh, I don't know. Yeah, I guess
I have been seeing a lot more of her than usual, ever since we both
got the upgrade to our curses. But… I mean… that's only
natural, right?"

"Ranchan… far be it from me to sound like Akane…"
Ukyo said through gritted teeth, "but do you seriously not
see that she's just trying to snag you for herself again?"

He frowned. "I don't know, Ucchan, but I will tell you one
thing I haven't seen. I haven't seen her try an' tell me which of
my friends I could and could not spend time with." He closed
his eyes again, and said, speaking now with more tiredness than
determination, "Akane does that a lot. You've seen it yourself,
I know, and it just ends up with me going out behind her back. I'm
even startin' to be glad that it's easier to do that now…
I'd really rather not have things be like that with you, Ucchan…"

"I'm not trying to say what you can and can't do," she
replied carefully. "Just wanted you to watch out, that's all.
If someone had told you three months ago that Shampoo would dump
Instant Drowned Cat Water on someone you knew and cared about, and
two days later you wouldn't even be a little mad at her for it,
would you have believed them?"

"I…" He gulped. "I don't know…."

"Just think about it, okay?" Ukyo requested. "That's
what I'm doing. Just trying to look out for… for the one who
matters most to me in this whole crazy town… that's what fiancées
and best friends do, isn't it?"

"Yeah, all the time, in a better world than this," Ranma
said, his tone taking any sting out of the words. It was clear,
both from that tone and from his expression as he opened his eyes
once more, that he was feeling quite grateful for her response.
Not leaving it to chance, though, he continued, "Thanks, Ucchan."

"You're welcome. But I-I will say that I'd like something
a little more for myself," she said, calling on all her courage.
"To see you a little more than I get to already, that is. I've
been thinking about this for awhile now, Ranchan, and I was wondering…
would you like to join the astronomy club with me?"

Ranma blinked, not having expected that. He turned the thought
over in his mind a few times. The astronomy club… Yeah, that
was one of the four whose members were able to skip their last class
of the day. It did sound kind of nice. "But can we even join
up this late in the game? School started up a long time ago. We
may not be halfway through the semester yet, but I'm pretty sure
all the clubs stopped takin' applications awhile back."

Ukyo rolled her eyes. "You mean, I was hallucinating? The
falconry club hasn't been trying to get you to join?"

"Well, no, not as a student anyway," he pointed out,
remembering that he needed to tell Ucchan about the club's latest
persuasion tactic but deciding that this probably wasn't the best
time.

"Doesn't really affect my point, Sugar." Ukyo closed
the distance between them with two quick steps, then bounced the
back of her hand off his shirt. The same, absolutely-nothing-to-do-with-regulations
shirt that he wore all the time to Furinkan. "You know the
normal rules don't apply to people like us. Any club would bend
over backwards to get you and me as members. If nothing else, we're
insurance against the next time Principal Kuno hatches one of his
plans."

"Well, maybe. It wouldn't hurt to try, right?" Ranma
said, giving her a grin. "Sure, I'm up for it."

"Great!" Ukyo said, returning his smile. In all honesty,
she wasn't sure just how much of a concrete gain this was; she had
already been spending her last class of the day with Ranma
and without Akane there to interfere. But at least the principle
involved here — Ranma agreeing to do this because it would
let them spend time together — felt very nice.

Of course, that wasn't the only thing he'd agreed today to do with
her. Her smile curved just a bit wider and showed a few more teeth
as she said, "And now I believe you owe me an hour of sparring
practice?"

Kasumi was mildly surprised when the falcon zipped in through the
window, alighted on the counter, and began flapping its wings and
cheeping imploringly. "Hello, Ryoga," she said with a
smile. "Would you like some hot water?"

The falcon that was Ryoga Hibiki nodded, settling down with what
Kasumi thought must be a sigh of relief. She turned to the sink
and began running hot water into a pan. "Here you go,"
she said, putting the water on the floor. Then she blinked, picked
it back up and dumped it into the sink. Ryoga let out a squawk of
protest. Kasumi gave him a quick, apologetic bow and smile. "Let
me bring a towel and bathrobe for you first, all right?" she
asked. Ryoga's eyes widened in realization, and Kasumi could almost
imagine she saw a hint of red suffusing the darkness of his feathers.
"I'll be right back, so please don't go anywhere," she
called over her shoulder as she slipped through the doorway.

It took her longer than she'd expected to fetch those items and
return, due to the fact that halfway through the process she realized
there was something else she really ought to deliver to Ryoga as
well. She made a quick side-trip to the room Ranma shared with his
father, then headed for the living room where the only other occupant
of the home could currently be found. "Hello, Nabiki,"
she said.

"Hey, Sis." Nabiki looked up from her manga with a mildly
inquisitive look. The expression sharpened and became more interested
as she noted one particular item her elder sister was carrying.
"Isn't that Ranma's last full bar of waterproof soap?"

"Yes. Well, it isn't really Ranma's, remember? He's been waiting
until he could give it to Ryoga."

"Well, that's what he says, at least," Nabiki
murmured. "So what are you doing with it?" She blinked,
hearing slight sounds of movement from the kitchen. "Don't
tell me — ol' What's-his-name dropped in for one of his fly-by-night
visits?"

"Ryoga's in the kitchen, if that's what you mean." A
wrinkle of puzzlement creased Kasumi's brow. " 'Ol' What's-his-name'?"

"Well, we shouldn't waste this opportunity to give him his
own protective soap," Kasumi said briskly. "Where are
the bars you ordered from China?"

"Urglplk!" Nabiki was able to keep her eyes from widening
noticeably, and stifle the gurgle before it could escape the back
of her throat, but she was still as surprised as she had been in
a long time. "Ah… what do you mean, Kasumi?"

The eldest Tendo daughter blinked. "I mean the four bars of
waterproof soap Akane paid you to order from the Jusenkyo Products
company," she said, clearly puzzled at Nabiki's response. "Two
for Ranma and two for Ryoga. They did arrive this morning while
I was out shopping, right?"

"Yes, they did," Nabiki said slowly. "While you
were out shopping, and Akane was out jogging, and Ranma was soaring
in the wild blue yonder, and Daddy was at that town council meeting,
and Mr. Saotome was off scrounging up more supplies for Akane's
training."

Nabiki started to say something else, then visibly thought better
of it. "Okay, I'll go fetch Ryoga's share of the soap. Assuming
he hasn't wandered out of the kitchen and into the sunset yet."

Kasumi looked down at the towel and bathrobe in her hands. "Oh
my, I hope not."

The Tendo sisters vacated the room, one looking mildly concerned
and hopeful, the other doing her best not to register uneasiness.
"Ryoga, I'm back," Kasumi said as she stepped through
the doorway.

"Thanks, Kasumi, but you really didn't need to go to that
much trouble."

The eldest Tendo daughter's eyes widened. Ryoga was standing before
her, looking very sheepish. The transformation in and of itself
wasn't too surprising, since Kasumi could easily believe that his
talons would be able to manipulate the sink handles, but he was
also dressed in his trademark yellow shirt, black pants, and black-and-yellow
bandana. As the bandana was the only piece of that ensemble he'd
had on him when he arrived, Kasumi was understandably confused.
"How did you do that, Ryoga?" Smiling as she recovered
her equilibrium, she guessed, "Did Shampoo's friend Mousse
teach you how to carry around spare clothes and things even when
you're a bird?"

"No, I just hid a bunch of changes of clothing in important
places," Ryoga said, leaving out exactly how far back he'd
done this.

"Hmmm, 'be prepared'. The Boy Scout motto. I never knew you'd
joined, Ryoga." This was Nabiki, appearing behind Kasumi. "So
how far along in the ranks are you?" She smirked at him. "Eagle
Scout? Or maybe something a little humbler, cuter, and more down-to-earth?"

"Akane's busy training right now," Nabiki said helpfully,
answering before Kasumi could. "You can give them to me and
I'll pass them along to her." Or rather, she would evaluate
them in case Ryoga had managed to once again get his hands on some
exotic goods that were commonplace where he'd picked them up, but
very valuable in the local markets. She'd made several hundred thousand
yen by acting as the middleman for Ryoga to her little sister, selling
the actual items he had intended for Akane and providing her with
locally-produced variants that looked nearly identical to what she
would have gotten. Nabiki knew there was no chance in the world
Ryoga would ever notice the difference, and even if he did it wasn't
like he could say anything.

"No, thanks," Ryoga said. "I'd really like to stay
and talk to her — if that's all right, I mean." Kasumi
gave him a cheerful smile and nod, and Ryoga returned his own grin
of thanks. "I'll give them to her myself."

Nabiki gave him a long, measuring look. He didn't seem at all nervous
at that prospect, and that was cause for contemplation. Given that
in the past she'd seen Ryoga destroy the better part of a load-bearing
wall simply by nervous fidgeting while trying to present his latest
batch of gifts to Akane, it didn't make much sense now for him to
face the prospect entirely free of doubt or anxiety. Unless, of
course, he was under one of the random mind-altering effects that
popped up every so often in the district.

"I'm sure Akane will appreciate that," Kasumi said. "She'll
be glad to see you again."

"I'll be glad to see her," Ryoga replied. "You said
she was training? I wonder if she'd like me to help her. Or…
is Ranma with her?" His face clouded over as he asked the question,
but not to the degree that Nabiki had expected. Her sense of something
being out of place ratcheted up another notch.

"No, she's working with Ranma's father lately," Nabiki
said. "Mr. Saotome doesn't allow anyone else to watch while
he does whatever he's doing with Akane." She speculated idly
for a moment, wondering whether she ought to drop a few hints that
training might not be the only thing on Genma's mind during these
meetings with Akane. Quickly she realized it would be mostly pointless.
She could undoubtedly get Ryoga all fired up and send him charging
out there to confront Genma, but the old panda would just deny everything
and divert Ryoga toward his son, probably managing to stoke the
Lost Boy's anger even higher in the process. It would be good for
a laugh for her, but it probably wouldn't accomplish anything concrete.

There were better methods at her disposal. "Even Ranma gets
shut out, no matter how much he complains about it."

"Good for Akane," Ryoga pronounced. "She's much
better off without him. Especially in something like that."

Kasumi blinked. "Why do you say that, Ryoga? Why would Akane
be better off with just Mr. Saotome and not Ranma there while she
trains?"

"Urk!" Ryoga paled. He hadn't quite thought of it that
way. Half a loaf might be better than none, but he wasn't sure the
saying applied in this particular situation. Sure, Ranma was a jerk,
but where had he learned it from?

"Oh, I don't know, Kasumi," Nabiki said casually, watching
Ryoga from the corner of one eye. "Maybe because Ranma always
makes fun of our baby sister's skills in the Art, points out how
far she has to go, and rubs her face in the fact that, compared
to everyone else around here, she's not a real martial artist at
all."

"Excuse me, Nabiki," Ryoga said coldly. "Just because
she's not as good as Ranma or me doesn't make her not a real martial
artist."

"No, but only training when she feels like it, and only feeling
like it when someone bruises her pride, does," Nabiki shot
back with a smirk.

"What do you know about it, anyway?" Ryoga demanded.
"It wasn't that long ago that I helped her train to take down
those girls who thought they were your sisters. You weren't there
to see her, how much spirit and dedication she had!"

"And you weren't around for the month before those two showed
up," Nabiki said in a voice like honey over a razor blade,
"when the only 'training' she did was her daily jog. You also
weren't around a couple of days after the fight, when I talked to
little sister and got the details of just what kind of training
you gave her."

"What's that supposed to mean? I gave her just what she needed!
She came back just fine to win the rematch!"

Nabiki's eyes flashed. "Ryoga… I suggest you stop being
so pigheaded about this." The threat in her tone was
unmistakable, at least to someone who knew what the middle Tendo
was talking about.

Kasumi, meanwhile, was looking lost and uncertain. She could sense
the mood behind the two teenagers' words, but didn't really understand
the how or why. Particularly she didn't understand why Nabiki's
choice of words in that final sentence should have Ryoga paling
and flinching back. "Um… well… Ryoga, here,"
she interjected, breaking the hard cold silence and handing a small
square package to Ryoga. "It's a bar of waterproof soap. Nabiki
has two more for you. Ranma wanted you to have half of his stock,
so that you could have your own protection."

"Yeah, yeah, here you go Hibiki." Nabiki handed over
her two bars as well. 'Feel free to sell them or pitch them once
you don't need them any more. At the very least don't just give
them back to Ranma.'

"He… he did? Wait a minute, did Akane ask him to?"

"Yes, that's right," Kasumi said. "They were both
thinking of you."

'Yeah, right,' Ryoga thought. 'I guess the price of being
as nice as Kasumi is that you don't see the world how it really
is. No way Ranma would have done this for me without Akane saying
anything. At least not when he had already got Shampoo to get a
real cure shipped here for me…' Blinking in sudden alarm,
Ryoga realized that although Ranma had told him he would make the
request, he hadn't seen or heard from his rival since then. For
all he knew, it might have proved impossible for some reason or
another and these bars of soap were Ranma's apology for not being
able to finally free him from Jusenkyo's embrace. "What about
the Nannichuan?" he asked desperately.

"Should get here in another couple of weeks," Nabiki
drawled. "Ranma said he figured even a klutz like you could
keep protected between now and then with this much soap."

"Oh, he did, did he?" Ryoga growled.

"And I hope you appreciate how much trouble he's had to go
to, to do this for you," the middle Tendo continued. "Whatever
Shampoo wanted from him in return for doing this, it's got to be
big. He hasn't even had the guts yet to tell us what it is."

"Oh, please, Sis. You don't honestly believe that, do you?"
Nabiki rolled her eyes. "I suppose it's just a coincidence
how much time he spends away from home these days, and how the Cat
Café is only taking delivery orders anymore."

"So that jerk is only getting worse as time goes by, huh?"
Ryoga growled. "Akane would be better off if she'd never met
him. She'd be better off if he'd never been born!"

Nabiki gave him a hooded stare. "I suppose you could suggest
someone to take her current fiancé's place, hmmm?"

He shook his head, not quite angry enough to miss the implication.
"Forget replacing him. She'd be better off without anyone in
his place at all. She doesn't need someone so much better than her
that he thinks her skills are worthless, someone with so many bimbos
after him that he doesn't recognize a real treasure because it doesn't
fall all over him. She sure doesn't need idiots like Ranma's dad
or yours trying to pick out someone for her to spend the rest of
her life with."

Kasumi frowned unhappily. "Ryoga, that's… not very nice."

He started stonily back at her, a little too focused on Akane and
her situation to realize just how bad it would be to hurt her sweet,
gentle sister. "It's still true."

The eldest Tendo drew back, but didn't have time to give any other
reaction. Nabiki's hand was already on her arm, in a gentle but
firm grip. "Hey, Kasumi, don't you have some laundry to sort
up in your room?" she asked lightly. "Some dusting to
do?" She winked. "Or maybe that romance novel and box
of chocolate covered cherries I picked up for you yesterday?"

"I… yes, Nabiki, I think that might be a good idea.
It's still a while before I need to start work on supper."
Kasumi slipped away from Ryoga and out of the kitchen, not exactly
hurrying, but certainly not dawdling either.

Ryoga started to follow at least as far as the back porch, meaning
to wait there for Akane, but Nabiki took hold of him with the hand
that hadn't given Kasumi gentle encouragement a moment ago. Her
older sister was no longer present, Ranma was off heaven-knew-where,
and most importantly of all Akane was in the dojo with Soun and
Genma. She wasn't about to waste this opportunity. "You're
not going anywhere, P-chan," she hissed, a venomous sound that
easily cut through Ryoga's smoldering anger at the unfairnesses
in Akane's life.

"Is there something you wanted to say?" Ryoga growled
in return a few seconds later, once he was sure Kasumi was out of
earshot. "And don't call me P-chan!"

"I'll call you what I please," Nabiki said coldly. "P-chan,
opportunist, liar… this is the first time we've talked since
you dropped by and showed us your new curse, isn't it? I'll admit
I was impressed at the time. That explanation you gave Akane for
why Ranma and Shampoo would give you a Falcon curse too… why,
I couldn't have come up with something better myself! How's that
feel, Ryoga-baby?" she asked sweetly. "Even a 'heartless,
honorless, ice-cold bitch' like me was impressed by your performance!"

Ryoga jerked his arm free from her grasp, though he retained enough
presence of mind not to use anything like full strength. "Don't
bother to throw that in my face, Nabiki," he advised. "Ranma
already beat you to it, and he did a better job than you managed.
Don't know who you're trying to hurt by dredging that little phrase
up, either. I think it was a great way for me to describe someone
who'd take money in exchange for keeping quiet about who and what
her little sister's pet really was." In fact, with what Ranma
had forced him to face about how bad his actions had really been,
he now wished he could think of stronger words than those. 'Maybe
some kind of Yakuza reference? No, she'd probably take it as a compliment.'

"You seem to be forgetting the nonmonetary part of the transaction,"
Nabiki spat. "Freudian slip, maybe? I'll refresh your memory.
As long as you didn't do anything to Akane and she didn't find out
the truth, you weren't actually hurting her. I could let my silence
be for sale as long as that was true. But I meant every word I said
when I warned you what would happen if you really did hurt Akane,
or any of my family, Ryoga baby. You may not have the Pig
curse any more, but it wouldn't be all that hard for me to get my
hands on some Instant powder. I can still take 'P-chan' to a shelter
and have him fixed. Or put down."

"Are you finished?" Ryoga demanded bitterly. "I
didn't forget any of it. And you don't need to threaten me to keep
me from hurting Akane."

Nabiki gave an exclamation of disgust. "Bullshit. You've been
trying to do it since day one, and the only thing that's saved you
is that you haven't managed it yet. In fact, more often than not
you've helped when you were trying to hurt."

"What the hell are you talking about?!"

"I'm talking about Ranma Saotome." Nabiki gave him her
coldest, most sardonic grin. "I have no idea how many times
you proclaimed he wasn't good enough for her. Akane was always too
clueless to catch it, but of course each time there was the implication
that you would be a much better choice. The fact of the matter is,
if I'd ever thought you had a chance to shove him out from between
you and Akane, I'd have taken you out of the picture first."

"I'd be a dozen times better choice for her than Ranma is,"
Ryoga said in a voice thick with fury. "I'm not trying for
that anymore, I know I'm not good enough for her. But that doesn't
make him somehow better!"

"Get real, or get a surgeon to work on your eyes," Nabiki
advised. "If it weren't for Ranma, this family would have been
torn apart a long time ago. At least five things crash-landed on
us in the past year that had nothing to do with him, and that we
simply could not have survived without his help." Even her
skills had their limits, most particularly that she needed time
to develop and execute a plan, and all too often the kind of menaces
that had now become part of their lives attacked swiftly and without
advance warning. It galled her to the very bone to know that the
only control she could exert over such situations was keeping Ranma
in place as insurance. Watching her little sister continue to ignore
the lessons she should have learned wasn't exactly pleasant either.
"And you want to kick him out for daring to mouth off to Akane
from time to time?"

"Is that what you call it?" Ryoga said, anger now vying
with weariness. "You're the one fooling yourself, Nabiki. Or
trying to fool me, anyway. You talk like you actually care about
Akane, about your family, but all I see is you worrying that things
won't go exactly the way you want them to. Akane, your father, Kasumi…
well, maybe not Kasumi… they're just pieces on the
board to you. Having Ranma around to exploit is all you care about.
It doesn't matter at all how he hurts her."

"He treats the brat better than she deserves, most of the
time," Nabiki stated in her most matter-of-fact tone of voice.
Despite the charge Ryoga had just leveled against her, this still
managed to send him stumbling a step backward in shock. "And
I don't suppose there's a snowball's chance in hell you'll really
understand what I mean when I say that."

"I'd guess it means you want this conversation to be over,"
Ryoga said tightly. "Because I'm sure not going to stick around
and—"

The resounding crack of Nabiki's slap cut him off. The
gesture had been every bit as controlled as her previous words,
designed to silence Ryoga and get his attention rather than physically
hurt him (which Nabiki was fairly sure she couldn't have done anyway).
"It means that I actually understand what my precious little
princess of a sister really needs," she spat. "She needs
someone as strong and skilled and dependable as Ranma to pull her
out when she gets in over her head. She needs someone as clueless
about girls as Ranma, because she sucks at all things feminine and
can't even admit there's a problem. She needs someone to knock her
off her high horse now, while he's there to catch her, because the
world for damn sure doesn't care about Akane Tendo's delusions
of adequacy!"

"Dammit, Nabiki, I don't want to listen to this!" Ryoga
barely held back from yelling the words loud enough to reach all
the way to the dojo.

"Of course not. You're part of the problem. For example, you
chow down on the culinary catastrophes she calls food, and tell
her it's great. Tell me, Ryoga, exactly how is that going
to help her get better? Or do you think it'll really be okay for
her to someday feed glop like that to children?"

"Um… I… she won't…." He couldn't manage
a better reply than that.

"Or how about her martial arts skills, since you seem to think
it's such a crime for Ranma to criticize them? Enlighten me, oh
wise one, just what would happen if Akane were to get in a serious
fight with Shampoo — especially if our favorite Amazon knew
about it ahead of time and prepared with her own waterproof soap?"

"Shampoo wouldn't even be here if it weren't for Ranma!"

Nabiki just shook her head. "Pathetic. Okay, I'll humor you.
Forget the soap and replace 'Shampoo' with 'Kodachi'." It was
one of the few areas where Nabiki wholeheartedly agreed with her
father. Like Soun, she wasn't terribly concerned about the idea
of Akane in general challenge matches. Like Soun, she absolutely
did not want to see the Black Rose fight her sister when Kodachi
was out for blood. "In case you've forgotten, when Miss Kuno
first came into our lives it had nothing to do with Ranma."

"She… she could…" Ryoga did his best to shake
away memories of the long-ago match between Kodachi and Ranma-chan.
"If it were a serious fight and Akane didn't have to use gymnastics
tools, she could win. As strong as she is, all it would take is
one hit!"

"I believe it wouldn't take more than one hit from Kodachi
either, for reasons that have nothing to do with brute strength,"
Nabiki returned. "Ryoga, for Akane's sake, please pinch yourself
and wake up from this dreamworld. She's not good enough.
She does need to grow up. The things Ranma says to her are
totally justified more often than not, and if I thought it would
really get through to her, I'd arrange for him to be even harsher
and more critical." A vicious frown splitting her face, she
added, "And the last thing my little sister needs is
for so-called friends to feed her delusions instead of helping wean
her off of them!"

"What she really needs is for people to believe in her,"
he fired back. "If you think Ranma is such a great asset, why
don't you marry him instead of sticking it to Akane?!"

"You aren't listening to a word I'm saying, are you,"
Nabiki accused. "Guess I'm wasting my breath. But I will say
this, Hibiki. I spent a lot of time talking to little sister after
that business with Natsume and Kurumi. I got her to describe just
what kind of training you had been doing with her." Her eyes
narrowed. "You didn't hit back. You didn't do any work on her
evasion. All you did was help her recover her conditioning, get
back what she'd lost during that month little Miss 'I'm a martial
artist too!' spent without training at all. And don't think I missed
the way you were talking earlier, about Akane winning the rematch.
I was there, and I'll tell you to your face that it was Ranma who
won it. Akane was just along for the ride."

"I don't have to listen to this," Ryoga snarled. "Akane
deserves a better fiancé than Ranma, she deserves a better
friend than me, and she sure as hell deserves a better sister than
you!"

Nabiki barked a quick, bitter laugh. "She's got one, remember?
Kasumi? Closest thing to an angel on earth, and you were about this
close to really hurting her with what you were saying. Did you even
stop to wonder why we were having this conversation, Ryoga-baby?"
Although Nabiki was honest enough to admit to herself that it wasn't
just sisterly outrage; there was another, more important reason
as well. Shampoo had never been anywhere near as threatening as
she was nowadays, and the middle Tendo just was no longer certain
she could afford to ignore Ryoga's fumbling, previously-ineffective
attempts to alter the status quo.

"That-that isn't what I meant!" he protested.

"I don't give a damn what you meant. As if you even know yourself."
Nabiki stepped forward, getting right in his personal space, and
growled, "I suggest you go right on thinking of me as a 'heartless,
honorless, ice-cold bitch'. Because you're right about at least
part of it — I don't care about you, or Ranma, or his father,
or any of his would-be harem, except for what you can do for me
and my family. And what I have to make sure you don't do. You might
get off on thinking you're some kind of knight in shining armor
for Akane, but I assure you, Ryoga, if you screw things up for me
or mine, I will leave you wishing you had never been born."

Ryoga stood in relative silence for a few moments, broken only
by his labored breathing. "That's a really great attitude,
Nabiki," he eventually said, biting the words off. "I
hope someday you meet someone else who thinks like that."

To be continued.

Author's notes: Based on the prereader feedback, there are two
issues that I'd like to elaborate on here. The first is Akane and
my treatment of her — specifically the way I have Nabiki speaking
and thinking about her in this chapter. This was something that
was very hard to bring off; it was necessary for how I want to depict
Nabiki in this fanfic, but at the same time I don't want the readers
thinking I put that in to have her speak with my voice as she derides
her sister. If I wanted to choose one of the characters as my direct
mouthpiece, you'd better believe I'd pick someone better than this
story's Nabiki Tendo. ^_^

So why are those parts in there? Like I already indicated, it is
mostly for the readers to get a better idea of the character of
Nabiki, not Akane — because at the end of the day no
one character has got a monopoly on the truth or sees everything
with perfect clarity. There is justice to some of what Nabiki says,
but it is for each reader to decide for himself where the line falls
between "Nabiki is right about this" and "Nabiki
is wrong about that"; the real value of these scenes is insight
into the middle Tendo. Or at least that's what I wrote them for,
anyway.

The second issue is Ranma's willingness to accept Shampoo dishing
out a temporary Jusenkyo curse. Some readers probably feel he should
have been harsher, more critical, more angry at Shampoo for what
she did, and certainly not keeping quiet when she stated she was
fully prepared and ready to give Akane her own one-shot transformation
if the youngest Tendo ever again uses her curse against her.

This, however, is not how I see Ranma Saotome in general, and certainly
not in this story. For the first time now he has experience with
bearing a nonhuman curse and has had people see it as just another
opening to exploit. This has not made him regret taking his Falcon
curse, but it has been very frustrating nonetheless. I cannot but
think that his sympathies would rest with Shampoo once he got all
the information, because she is the one who is vulnerable
to this tactic anytime, anyplace. A plan that didn't harm Ukyo,
that did teach the chef to really understand how it felt when someone
pulled something like this on you, something that could make Ukyo
choose to hold back out of empathy or morality rather than just
fear of retaliation… like I already said, I just don't see
it as bothering Ranma too much.

One last thing on this: in the original series, Ranma himself has
never deliberately used people's curses against them to win a fight
(or at least, I couldn't remember any examples and neither could
my prereaders). However, he has shown himself to be willing to trigger
someone's curse under other circumstances (twice with Ryoga that
I can recall, and of course there's the times Genma is giving a
speech that Ranma doesn't want to listen to ^_^). It seems to me
that the best, most consistent explanation here is that he considers
winning a battle with a trick like that to be too far beyond the
pale, too low-down and dirty to qualify as victory at all. Because
he never even considered using it to take down Ryoga in either the
Breaking Point or the Shi Shi Hokodan arcs, despite how much was
at stake.

Thanks to Ed Simons, Nemesis Zero, and Beer-Monster for prereading.
Thanks to Judah for permission to use the 'Buzzing Fist' technique
from his story Right Moments (although I just kept the name and
completely changed the nature of the move). Thank you for reading,
and I hope you enjoyed the chapter.